Multiverse Shard: The Quest For Truth
by UnusualThoughts
Summary: This is the story of four pokemon that got their life ruined, in a way or another. Will they find what they have lost? Will this small shard of the multiverse be the right one? Nobody knows, their fate is too dark, nebulous, to be easily foreseen. Criticism and reviews are highly encouraged, the cover is poorly made but whatever! Early chapters under rework!
1. Fresh air, new friend

**A/N - Last Edited/Revised by UnusualThoughts and iPBJSammich on May 22, 2016.**

 **Second touch [10/07/16]**

* * *

The night was cloudy, yet the stars still gleamed brightly, little white speckles contrasting the darkness surrounding them. Still, sufficient lighting would be lacking, had it not been for the hastily-made fire, both providing illumination and heat for the four, exhausted Pokémon. They finally found, after a full day of running and hiding, that they could relax a small bit.

The small glade in the middle of the forest seemed safe enough to let the foursome sleep without worrying about wild pokemons or the Beedrills, the thick vegetation and the fire were enough to fend both off… and maybe something else.

After fueling some more the campfire and looking around for possible pursuers, understood that there was nothing to worry about, a teal-maned feline alongside a blue-furred canine started laying down by the fire.

In the meanwhile, another pokemon lurked in the shadows behind them, finishing quietly the scoping his friends left unfinished.

Electivire wasn't as tired as his new companions, and instead of immediately lying down to rest next to them, he tried starting a conversation with his saviors.

"Y'all know pretty much all you need to know about me, but I want to hear you talking a bit… Where'd you guys come from? I've never seen Pokémon like you around here."

One of his saviors, a Shinx, looked up at the other electric-type groggily before rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a paw. "I guess we could tell you a few things... Riolu, mind helping me out?" He bent down and shook the already-asleep Riolu awake. "Hey, are you listening to me?" The fatigue accumulated throughout the day fully toned down his naturally fiery temper, transforming what would have been a slap to a soft nudge.

The jackal, upon being woken, yawned widely and looked around him, glaze over his eyes. After a few blinks, though, and a tired gaze towards his waker, he mumbled a half-agitated, "What?"

"Electivire wanted to know a bit more about us, I don't wanna have to tell him alone."

"I mean, you don't have to if you don't wanna," Electivire interjected after Riolu shot him a sideways glance.

"Meh, I don't mind, just would've appreciated if this could wait 'till morning, but too late for that now," the jackal replied with a sigh before beginning his story. "Well, all of us; we lived in a mountain, circled by a thick forest, life was simple and our parents made it even better."

He paused, making a movement towards his face with his forearm as if to rub more sleep from his eyes, but… Was that a tear? Riolu, soon after, continued, bringing Electivire's attention from the abnormality.

"In the morning I used to play with my best friends, in the afternoon we all trained together with our parents and in the evening we all went and spent time at home. It was a nice, quiet life." The fight-type continued describing their old standard of life, looking skywards, like if he wanted to taste each single good memory his own words brought back with them. His melodramatic voice, as for Shinx, was attenuated by his weariness and matched his facial expression.

Electivire replied when Riolu seemed finished, "A mountain? I would love to visit one, it seems pretty cool… Living from birth in a generator isn't exactly… stimulating." He paused, looking for some sort of reaction. When he got none, he continued, "Go on."

"Right, but the forest wasn't my perfect choice, either," Shinx interrupted before Riolu could continue speaking. "I was just born there and learned to live in it. If I had the possibility to chose where I wanted to live, though, it would be a huge plain." He gave a little smile when finished, musing over the prospect.

"I was blessed, I think, to have lived in a mountain plenty of rocks to break and challenging runs," Riolu picked up, "However, like I said, life was beautiful. We had anything we would've needed; water from the glaciers and an endless supply of apples and berries... And… And then..."

He trailed off, a dark look flashing across his face before he looked at the ground in troubled reminiscence.

Shinx padded over to his friend and sat down beside him, giving the jackal a worried look before turning towards Electivire, a pleading look in his eyes. The larger Pokémon either didn't notice it or brushed past it, considering the very next thing he said was, "And? But?" in an attempt to get the fighting type to continue.

"Well," Riolu lifted his head to give a sharp glare at Electivire, causing Shinx to back off, "that's none of your business right now." Before Electivire could respond to the harsh message, however, the fighting type gave a hasty, "Good night," as he turned on his side to go back to sleep, facing away from the rest of the group.

Shinx looked at him disappointedly, as if to say, 'you shouldn't have said that.'

"Well, err... We still haven't presented ourselves officially…" Electivire said, trying to rekindle the semi-happy mood. "I'm Electivire, n-nice to meet you all." He looked expectantly towards his companions, hoping for some semblance of friendly conversation.

"Riolu," the jackal presented himself briefly, not bothering to turn back around.

"I'm Shinx," the other Pokémon replied. "Don't worry, Riolu is like this when he's tired," he comforted, earning an indifferent grunt from the aforementioned jackal.

"And I'm Zorua," another, male voice said from off to the side, causing Electivire to jump.

"AAAAH!" he exclaimed, "When did you get there!? I didn't even notice you throughout the entire conversation!" Electivire concluded, calming himself down enough to chuckle, which, when fueled by the others (sans Riolu), turned into a hearty laugh.

"I was just making sure that we were alone, nothing more!" The dark-type fox explained with a smile. Unlike his other three friends, he still looked filled to the brim with energy, taking his time and walking around before lying down by his friends.

They all, ignoring the touchy subject previously brought up, took a few seconds to laugh their worries away, followed by their lying down to sleep in the warmth of the still-blazing fire.


	2. Electivire's first fight

**A/N - Last Edited/Revised by UnusualThoughts and TehSammichMan on May 24, 2016.**

* * *

As usual, Zorua woke up early to do some recognition of the area, leaving the group huddled around the dead fire as Riolu and Shinx were starting to stir. He gave a small glance towards his half-awake friends and the oblivious Electivire with a smile, before setting out.

Minutes passed, but only a few. Definitely not enough for Zorua to have finished scoping the area, but this time he came back earlier, and he wasn't alone.

When Shinx, now fully awake with Riolu, and trying to nudge Electivire awake, saw him running at such speed towards him, he understood immediately that something was happening. As a result, he discharged a small bit into the larger electric type's passed-out form to jolt him awake as Zorua started yelling.

"Beedrills! Incoming!"

Riolu, a bit disoriented from the small discharge that jolted him as well through the Electivire's conductive body, called back.

"Wait, wait, what? Are they the same ones as yesterday?"

Shinx replied, turning back towards Zorua's sprinting form, "I don't know, just get ready to run!"

Electivire was slowly getting to his feet, and Riolu finally regained his bearings, after shaking his head a few times. Yet, it was already too late to flee. The Beedrills were swarming the clearing in which they slept from a single direction, spreading out as Zorua finally reached them.

Growling, Riolu shouted to his group, "Prepare to fight! Don't let them surround us!"

Shinx prepared his discharge and Riolu got in a fighting stance. Electivire, still slightly groggy, was about to ask what was happening when they started letting off attacks.

From the beginning, it seemed the Beedrill separated into two different swarms, charging the group from either side. In order to address the two sides sufficiently, the group of four had to split themselves as well, Riolu and Electivire facing the left while Shinx and Zorua covered the right.

Shinx acted first, charging straight into the swarm, with the intentions of using discharge straight in the center, hopefully taking the entire swarm in one fell swoop. Zorua, to assist him, Feint Attacked multiple targets as they got too close.

Any Beedrill that Zorua could not handle, however, was promptly shocked into unconsciousness (or somewhere near it), as they made contact with the Shinx's electrified coat. If not, a Fire Fang was enough to do the trick.

Riolu and Electivire weren't faring anywhere near as well as the other two. Electivire, almost never having been put into battle situations before, clumsily struck, making contact with the ground or air nowhere near the Beedrill.

The one advantage he did have, however, was his more-than-exceptional electrical energy, conditioned over many years stuck powering the generator. However, when put to applicable use, it was erratic and uncalculated, so he ran the risk of greatly injuring his partner. As a result, he was mostly relying on Thunder Punches and other physical moves.

Riolu was successful in downing a few Beedrill with Force Palm, but faltered when he saw a group of Pin Missiles being shot at his partner. The Electivire was looking away, focused on other targets. Even if he did turn around in time, he wasn't properly conditioned to battle, and wouldn't be able to battle.

Riolu, despite the size difference, decided to be the bigger Pokémon and save his charge.

Was it some sort of emotional attachment? He didn't think so. More, it was that he felt a sense of duty to help protect the larger being, who had spent his entire life in solitary. He'd hate himself if a weaker, and vulnerable Pokémon was left to be injured, and even though the situation was odd; a tiny Riolu saving a giant Electivire, it felt right.

Sprinting to the side to get ahead of the pins rapidly shooting towards his companion, he veered in their path, subsequently knocking Electivire onto the ground, and out of harm's way. When Riolu tried to recover from the lack of momentum, however, he wasn't fast enough, and ended up pierced by a stream of projectiles.

Electivire was pushed back into the center of the clearing, where he found Shinx, his own plan having failed after losing sight of Zorua. With the smaller electric type surrounded, and with hardly any means of defense, he had retreated.

Over the sounds of battle, he called out to Electivire.

"Where's Riolu?!"

"I think he's still in there," Electivire responded, gesturing towards the swarm of Beedrill, most of their attention focused on an object in the center.

"Tcch… He's gonna get killed with that many attacking him all at once…" Shinx scowled, a risky plan forming in his mind. With no better options, he voiced his idea to Electivire.

"I don't know where Zorua is, but if I had to guess, he's probably just as bad off as Riolu. We gotta do something drastic in order to win with our lives, and I think I got an idea, even though it might cause a bit of damage to them. But, if the Beedrill are gone, we can get out of here and help out Zorua and Riolu when we're safe. Whaddaya say?"

Electivire didn't even have to think about it before responding, pressured into a quick retort by the few Beedrill starting to turn their attention onto the two electric types. "YES, yes, just go! Do it!"

"Grab onto my tail, and on three, let out as much lightning into me as possible, don't hold back."

"Wha-huh?"

"JUST DO IT"

"A-Alright," Electivire, nervous about hurting the smaller Pokémon, did as instructed, and waited for his count.

"Okay, ready?" Shinx turned towards his companion, who nodded, an anxious look on his face. "One, Two, Three!"

As instructed, Electivire let out as much electricity as possible into the tiny feline, charging it up like a little battery. Shinx, now supercharged, filtered Electivire's ions into his own, and let out a concentrated shock-wave that spread around them in all directions. Their combined power was enough to shoot out a constant charge, which arced in between each member of the swarm, twitching as they fell to the ground.

Screams rang around from all sides, silenced as many of their casters fell unconscious. A few were left, albeit heavily injured, but upon glancing at the two sources of the shock-wave, they quickly retreated.

Among the bunches of bodies, however, were two forms that deviated from the normal black, white, and yellow of the Beedrill's skin.

Zorua and Riolu, both unconscious, were quickly grabbed by Electivire, one in each arm. They then fled in the opposite direction the remaining Beedrill had gone, wishing to leave the clearing before their assailants woke. As they ran, Electivire looked worriedly down at Riolu, who seemed to be in worse a shape than Zorua. He had multiple needles sticking out of his skin, studded with small cuts around the entirety of his body, and the way he just hung limply in Electivire's grasp, tail and ears drooping, made him look fragile.

"How are you? Answer me!" Electivire loudly begged, ignoring the fact that the recipient of his pleas was knocked out.

Apparently, that wasn't true, considering the electric type's calls caused him to stir. "I'm fine, I'm fine, a bit battered, but fine… Everyone else okay?" he asked, too tired to move his head to look around for the rest.

"Shinx and I are fine, but Zorua's knocked out," Electivire replied, grateful for the jackal's well-being.

"No I'm not," another weak voice said, originating from Electivire's other arm. He looked down at its source to find Zorua, looking up at him expectantly. "What the hell was that?" he asked, as if to lighten the mood, "It hurt, whatever it was."

"Sorry about that," Shinx interjected, "There was just a lot of them, and we needed to get rid of them, and…"

"Don't worry about it," Riolu said when Shinx trailed off.

They ran for five minutes more, eventually stopping for respite beneath the shade of a few trees. Electivire and Shinx stood, panting, while the former set down his two companions.

"I think we're good now," he said, looking around cautiously for any Beedrill that might've tailed them.

"I'll go find some berries," Shinx said, giving a glance to his two grounded friends. "Let's hope they didn't get poisoned… I'll be back in a few."

"Be careful," Riolu said before Electivire could respond the same.

With a nod, the feline was off on his search, leaving Electivire with Riolu and Zorua, the latter of which had fallen asleep and was snoring quietly.

"I, uh…" Electivire started, awkwardly trying to start a conversation while he was alone with the jackal. "Thanks, for saving me and everything."

"Don't worry 'bout it," Riolu said with a grunt as he sat up, propping his back against a tree. "You and Shinx saved us this time, so I should really be thanking you."

"Uhhh…" Electivire trailed off, uncomfortable with the impromptu praise. He sighed before starting again, "Can we… Are we cool?"

Riolu gave Electivire a confused look for a second, before he realized what he was implying. With a small chuckle, he replied, "Yeah, we're 'cool'. Thought I didn't want to be your friend because of yesterday's conversation huh?"

"I… Uhh... Well…" Electivire tried to reply in confusion

"Don't think about it, I was just tired and a bit annoyed about a few personal things, is all," Riolu reassured him, reaching his arm up to the larger Pokémon for some semblance of a handshake. Yet, when Electivire reached back to return it, Riolu cringed, and his hand dropped back to his side with an unexpected weakness.

Electivire, instantly worried, tentatively asked, "What's wrong? A-Are you ok?"

"Gah… Poison… Luckily for me I have an antidote," Riolu replied with a whisper, showing his cheeks, tinted of a deep purple. He opened one of his belt pouches, albeit slowly, to obtain a soft, pink berry.

"Is that it? Just a berry?" Electivire asked, clearly not having ever heard of the fruit.

"Yes, it is, I'll be fine. Berries like this heal poison and they've never failed to do so," he said in between bites.

"Ok… I guess…" Electivire started, but froze when a new thought dawned upon him. "Wait... if you got poisoned, does it mean…" He turned to Zorua's direction, worried once again. He doubted Riolu had an extra berry on him, and if Shinx came back fruitless, they would be dead in the water.

Riolu understood Electivire's worries and shifted over, some of his own strength returning, to give his friend an examination. "Cuts here… Cuts there… He's fine, he didn't get poisoned," he stated after examining the tired black furball.

"Thank goodness…" Electivire replied, definitely relieved. After seeing Riolu struggling to get himself up on his feet, he continued, "You should probably get some rest, I'll look after y'all while you sleep."

"I-I guess you're right… Thanks… Friend," Riolu slowly said with a small smile, and, caught once more by fatigue, laid down on the grass and started resting next to Zorua.


	3. the calm before

A/N - Last Edited/Revised by UnusualThoughts and iPBJSammich on May 31, 2016.

* * *

As Shinx came back from his search into the forest, he have found just Electivire waiting for him, Riolu and Zorua were sleeping by him peacefully.

"Here's what I found," he said as he dropped his pack on the ground, filled to the brim with berries of many different colors, sizes, and shapes. When finished, he shot an expectant glance at Electivire, which quickly melted into curiosity. "Had any problems while I was gone? You look down about somethin'."

"We found out Riolu was poisoned," he started, but quickly continued as a result of his friend's worried stare, "he was able to fix it, though. He had some kind of berry on him that worked as an antidote. No… It's just… I wish I could've done more, back there, I mean…" Electivire trailed off, feeling guilty for Riolu's injures. If it weren't for him and his carelessness, at least in his mind, Riolu would be up and walking, ready to continue on. But…

Shinx prodded his knee with his paw and consoled him with, "They're tough, don't worry about them, and hey! You did great with all that power you gave me, that was pretty impressive! It's thanks to you that they're not even worse off, so you have that to feel good for!"

"W-what? Do you… R-Really think so?" Electivire asked tentatively, his eyes lighting up in shock and happiness for the very first compliment he'd ever received. He'd only seen humans during his time in the generator, and they saw him as anything more than a power source, an inanimate object. The only time he'd ever 'seen' Pokémon was in the form of their silhouettes through a small porthole-like window through which the humans could observe his progress.

Needless to say, gratitude, much less encouragement, was a new feeling to him, and, at the least, it made him feel nice.

Shinx nodded and smiled up at him, "Yes, I think so."

Electivire stood up, sighed, and with a relieved smile replied, "I feel a bit better now, thanks bud."

After a curt nod, Shinx gave a cursory glance of his two sleeping companions. "We should wake them up, we have to get away from here, and when we're clear from Beedrill's territory we can have breakfast with the food I gathered," he said, gesturing in the general direction of which they'd walk.

Electivire nodded and pushed Zorua lightly while Shinx approached Riolu.

Zorua was almost instantly awake upon being nudged by the larger Pokémon, albeit groggily. He was still exhausted, and Electivire and Shinx intended to let them rest a small bit more after getting out of immediate danger, but they had to get moving again eventually.

Yet, it seemed he was instantly awake after witnessing what was happening next to him.

Just in time for Zorua to witness was going to happen, Shinx tried to wake Riolu. But, as soon as he touched him with a paw, the jackal started glowing of a faint blue and, startled by the abnormality, Shinx leaped back to watch his friend's emanation grow even brighter.

The blue outline shone, almost blindingly, for a few moments, before Riolu opened his eyes, now awake. With the return on his consciousness, the glow immediately disappeared.

Riolu, acting like nothing had happened, shook his head, loudly yawning and shaking the dirt from his fur. "Ugh… what a nap… the poison left me with a headache". When he turned around he noticed that his friends were looking at him weirdly and he said "Why... Why are you looking at me like that? Somethin' up?"

Electivire was so flustered and confused that the only sounds that exited from his mouth were incoherent whispers "Y...You…"

Zorua struggled to say even the simplest of words whilst Shinx just exclaimed, "You started glowing!"

"What? I glowed? Come on, you can glow, I can't," Riolu replied skeptically and eyed them, returning their odd stares with his own.

"You did glow! While you were sleeping you glowed blue!" Shinx continued, letting out his concern.

"Are you serious?" Riolu asked, suspiciously starting to accept their explanation. When they all nodded in sync, he continued, "It must've been my aura, then… I still have to-"

Riolu's thoughts got interrupted by a faraway buzz, heard by the rest of the group not a second later.

"Whatever, we have to go now! They're coming!" Shinx exhorted his friends and put on again his backpack hastily.

There were no need for words as they started running along the path, progressively getting further and further from the source of the buzzing. They passed multiple Pokémon on their run, almost all of which peered at the fleeing group in curiosity.

They only continued running for a few minutes more, no sign of the Beedrill anywhere. Relieved, they slowed down their peace to a walk and chatted with one another quietly. They had quite a ways to go to the human city, so they tried their best to make themselves comfortable on the hike.

Electivire, though, unlike the others, was noticing for the first time the true beauty of the nature around him. He often found himself turning to watch a flock of birds as they passed, or marvelling at a group of flowers as they continued on. A few minutes of this passed before he spoke up about it. "This fresh air in my lungs... It's beautiful, in the generator, there was only the stink of the oil"

Riolu turned and smiled at him.

"You feel the value of the small things only when you miss them," Zorua said, in a manner Shinx and Riolu found amusing.

"Deepness flows through your words!" Shinx sarcastically replied, letting out a soft chuckle.

"Well, let's see then…" Zorua continued, ignoring his friend's heckling. "Have I already said that I'm not from this island?" he asked Electivire.

"Nope," Electivire curiously replied.

"Yes, at least two times" Shinx added, staring exasperatedly at Zorua.

"No, I think five times or more," Riolu participated, laughing.

"Can we... can we just forget that I said that?" Zorua said, rolling his eyes.

Shinx and Riolu nodded and resumed the hike. Electivire, with new information about Zorua, followed close behind.

A few minutes passed in silence, not a tense one, but more a comfortable stillness that everyone seemed to enjoy. A question, one he'd been meaning to ask the group the day before, slipped into his mind.

"So... What brought you to the power plant? I still haven't figured it out."

Riolu, taking initiative, replied before his friends could. "Beedrill didn't like our visit in their territory, to shorten it... We were able defeated entire swarms of them, but when they wouldn't stop coming, we decided it was time to run before we got killed. They were trying to corner us, so we decided to burst in that totally-out-of-place grey building to cluster them on one side."

Electivire closed with just an, "Ah"

A few hours passed, speckled with sporadic conversations between certain members of the party. They were lucky enough to be rid of feral Pokémon, and were able to travel without any interruption. Electivire guessed it was because of their large number.

The sun had just passed its peak in the sky when Zorua instructed everyone to stop. They all obeyed, Electivire looking perplexedly at the fox.

"We've arrived," he explained.

Riolu and Shinx, with a nod, emptied their satchels and backpacks near Zorua. Afterwards, they took off in opposite directions without a word. The entire exchange took only a few seconds, not enough to allow Electivire to voice a question.

Electivire, once they were gone, confusedly asked, "Wh-what are they..."

"We're gonna stay here for the night," Zorua interrupted, turning towards the electric type. "My job is done, but yours isn't."

"Since we're near a big town we are going to camp here until night but I have to teach you how to be stealthy" he continued

"Ok I guess..." Electivire replied and sat down with Zorua.

After an hour of 'stealth lessons' Electivire asked "While we were walking... You said that you aren't of this island, what have you meant with that?"

"I meant that i'm not from this island!" Zorua replied with a laughter

"Ok, ok, so, where are you from?" Electivire continued

"I'm from a quite far land, called Unova, my mother brought me here, in Sinnoh, while I was even younger" Zorua explained

"I see, well, now I know how place is called, and where you're from! I lived almost segregated in that building, so I pretty much know nothing about anything" Electivire replied smiling

"Well, if you want to know anything about this place, I'd be happy to explain you all that cross your mind, of course I have to know it first!" Zorua replied with willingness

After that, they both laughed

"So, how do i climb up this..."

"Let me show you..."

And they resumed the lessons till sunset.


	4. The tempest

"Ok, let's see here…*opens his backpack* Leaves, twigs, rocks, charcoal..." Riolu checked out his backpack's contents quietly to recall what he was looking for in that groove

"More wood" He mumbled and directed his gaze to the sky "After noon and before nightfall, definitely 've got plenty of time"

He ventured around the forest until he chanced upon what looked like a route "This should be… mh… 203?"

The jackal took a moment to scan his surroundings and then dropped down from the tree he was hiding in.

The entire area was filled with a calm atmosphere, the few humans that were either just passing by or waiting for an opponent seemed to enjoy that relaxing stillness, some of them were even sleeping under a tree's shadow peacefully.

The tall grass tuft beneath the his hiding place made a perfect coverage, so Riolu dropped down to have a better look around.

By peeking his head outside the tall grass he spotted a pond and something that looked like an information plaque.

"PPs? Stuff that I already know everywhere…" Riolu commented and started heading back to the tree of before, intending to find a less exposed place where he could gather sticks and punch down a tree for logs.

At least this was his plan, everything was going normally until he felt an uncomfortable sensation from his aura appendages...

"Could it be?" The fight-type recoiled "No, no it can't be, this ability is unique to pokemons like me..." When he felt the source of the sensation approaching, he hastily climbed up a tree, tightening his grasp on the wood as he felt three distinct beings approaching even closer to him.

"No, NO! ..." He yelled in his mind when he saw three human-like figures beneath him, sitting down by his hiding place.

Riolu was shocked by what his eyes just saw and perfectly matched the perception of before, although, something wicked awoke inside of him, something that he tried to forget long ago and with his return, made his eyesight blurry.

This simple feeling transformed into something more, that sensation made the painfullest memory stored into his mind come out from his subconscious brutally, so violently that it generated an uncontrollable anger, making Riolu's heart beat faster and his blood boil.

Losing briefly his mind and without even thinking anymore he dropped down the tree with an aura sphere in his hand, using it to raise the dust from the ground with the clash.

Those three got so scared by the sudden noise and the shockwave produced by the jackal that they leaped forward, landing on the grass path, and turned around standing on their backs.

When Riolu took control over himself he already had an aura sphere in his paw, breathing heavily and pointing the orb to the face of the special being in front of him.

Desperately trying to recover his bearings he closed his eyes, trying to vanish the sphere held and to lower the level of his aura, but since he could no more handle the situation, he couldn't focus enough to control his power and so he smashed the sphere again on the ground, raising once again the dust in order to cover his escape.

He ran for ten good minutes, but the feeling of being chased by something didn't leave him, so after some more minutes spent trying to leave behind his chasers, he stopped at the edge of a small clearing, by a nostalgic-looking tree and turned around towards his pursuers.

The sensation our fighter had was right, indeed he had a pokemon tailing him and right as Riolu stopped by that large tree, the pursuer stopped too, four meters from him, his cheeks sparkling with electricity in a fighting stance, ready to attack

After a small breath that orange mouse menacingly inquired "Why have you done that? What were you even thinking of doing to them?!"

Riolu barked his response with all the rage stored into his body "How does that feel? Being trapped into one of those cursed red spheres?! Does that burn? The feeling of becoming a human's TOY!"

That pokemon changed his facial expression in surprise for the harsh answer and tried to reply "I…" then picked up with decision "Humans are not bad! I and my trainer constructed an-"

Riolu interrupted him yelling "You can't even imagine what your owner's kin took from me! Took from my friends! Took from us! You just can't understand! YOU CAN'T "

And kept shouting "You can't!" until he gradually ran out of voice, going from a yell and ending up with a whisper, then he felt on his knees in despair, managing to wet himself just with how much tears he managed to cry.

All that scene was in complete contrast with the surrounding landscape, filled to the brim with peacefulness and tranquility, yet it hosted Riolu's drama, making his voice resonate like if he performed into a theatre.

The bystander of that performance was thunderstruck, but it wasn't over, Riolu in a final effort to dispel his anger, with his last lump of rage focus punched the tree he was standing by in a fraction of second, snapping it into two parts, and draw from the wood his arm now covered in woody splinters and cuts. His rage now fully transformed into psychological pain and deep desperation

The fighter looked down, spotting a puddle made with his tears and with blood that dripped from his arm, the reflection of his proud face shone into the pool of reddish mud and with a burst of his leftover pride he yelled to the orange pokemon "Don't you dare following me! Or I'll break each single bone of your body like twigs!"

Then he used his dust technique to get away, leaving on the ground a trail of blood and tears as well as his footprints, too much distracted to care about them.

After a long run towards nowhere Riolu leaned onto another tree, his fur became wet with tears and blood and because of that was feeling cold, so he cleaned his arm of the splinters and patched it up with a rag stored into one of his belt pouches.

"Never again..." he whispered to himself with a feeble voice, covered his face with both his paws "n't even recognized what I was aiming at! What I even thought of earning from... That..."

As he finished saying that, his arms fell limply from his face to his hips "Always been a crybaby, isn't that right?" he said to himself and dried his fur with a piece of cloth this time stored into an external pouch of the backpack, ready for use.

"The stuff..." He recalled and opened his backpack, checking its contents hastily.

"Alright, all here..." said with a half-relieved face, but still with the signs of that intense experience bending his expression.

But before he could look around, he heard some bushes moving, just tilting his head a little to the left was enough to spot the source of the noise, it was that mouse again, but he didn't look angry, his face was different, he looked more worried than else.

Riolu curtly said "Do as you like, I wish not to speak" and looked off to the ground on his right, abandoning the prospect of fighting and *breaking each single bone of his body like twigs*.

"Listen dramalord…" That Raichu started and slowly approached to the fight-type "...Humans ain't that bad, believe me… I'll prove my point by introducing you my mas- friend..."

At that correction Riolu's scepticism raised, leaving the mouse with a well deserved grunt from the pokemon he tried to convince "Oh, come on! Trust me!"

After shooting an extremely sharp glare at the orange electric-type, Riolu's thoughts shattered when he sensed the same feeling of before.

"'Are coming!" the fighter said and with a jump, hung on a branch of the tree he was leaning on.

"What?" the Raichu took a glance behind, thinking that the Riolu was talking about wild pokemons, as soon as he turned again towards the fight-type he already got all up on the higher branches of the tree "Wait! Where are you going?!" the mouse yelled and gestured him to come back.

"No time for you, I've got to go" Riolu quickly broke off the conversation and started jumping from branch to branch in the same direction as the source of the feeling, avoiding the three unidentified beings by travelling above them.

The mouse tried again to follow him, but was inevitably left behind because Riolu was much faster at jumping than running.

He juggled from tree to tree until he got again to the clearing of before and, after a small glance back, seeing that he successfully left his pursuers behind, Riolu headed towards the spot he had to meet with Zorua and Electivire with the stuff he gathered in his trip.


	5. Bo-ring!

Sun was about to set while Shinx crossed a rocky area past a miner's city, the outlook of the route he was in was a crossbreed between a regular forest and the outskirts of a cave

"It's getting late, but I still have to find those" Shinx whispered to himself while walking around the route

"Stones, stones, stones, weak pokemons and useless rocks... Mount Coronet awaits and we keep on practicing against weaklings"

"..."

"What is Riolu thinking of achieving by stay'n here?" He took a deep breath and kept on searching, looking for what he had to gather

Five whines and a half later he thought out loudly and stomped the ground "Enough of this senseless wandering!" turned around and started going back to his friends' shelter.

The pathway he was following was the same, even after the first beating they received when the feline was travelling in the opposite direction, some wild pokemon brave or fool enough tried to get in the way, but Shinx's proud posture, his razor sharp fangs and as-sharp glare were enough to fend them off without even engaging one sided battles (of course, one sided in Shinx's favour)

During his trip back to his friends, he heard some footsteps behind him, but didn't care and carried on nonchalantly

The alley was shadowed by the trees, the air of sunset flooded the entire area, overall the scenery managed to tone down Shinx's high-voltage temper, so he slowed his pace, starting to enjoy with a walk the charming landscape

" _Aah! Smell this air! If it was liquid I would drink it all in one go!_ " He thought, at least he didn't notice that he was actually saying those words as he was thinking them

He was halfway to the shelter when the footsteps behind him became too many to be neglected, so he turned around and with his surprise, he saw that he was followed by a tiny Larvitar that cheerfully waved to him when he turned

"*sigh* Why… Why are you following me?" Shinx asked, bothered by the presence of the rock\ground-type, while examining his minute body for a possible weak spot

"I don't know, I'm bored!" The Larvitar replied laughing "Why you took soooooo long to notice me?"

"First: Because I'm confident in my strength and second: I already heard someone following me and for the former reason I told you, I didn't care" The volt feline replied mockingly, his voice accompanied by a snide smirk

"Do you want to fight?" Larvitar said excitedly, with the voice of someone sure of his actions, that nothing could go wrong

"You want _me_ to fight _you_?" Shinx replied, both holding off his laughter and trying to keep on his facial expression

"Not just me!" The small rock yelled with an evil-ish voice and turned around towards the forest "US!"

Suddenly all sort pokemon rained from the trees and proceeded surrounding the lion cub, the assalitors' species ranged from Geodude to Machop, and a totally-out-of-place Stantler stood out with two Kricketot riding him

After an over-theatrical moment of suspense, the Larvitar shouted his command "Get him boys!"

Shinx wasn't all that shocked as the Larvitar expected him to be, in fact he obliterated half of the first wave of geodudes in one chain of Ice Fangs, executed with cold determination

The naive stone realised his mistake and took advantage from the chaos of the battle to flee into the forest in order to have his rocky skin safe

Many shockingly effective bites and Fire Fangs later, the only pokemon standing up was Shinx in all his proudness

"Wherever you are, don't forget this lesson!" The victorious cub shouted when he didn't find the cowardly Larvitar

From the forest he heard his voice shouted back at him "You will pay for this! We'll never forget and we will come back stronger than ever! It's a promise!"

With a victorious smirk on his face, Shinx gone back to his friends with the few stuff he found and with his hide untouched

* * *

When he came back, sun was long since disappeared below the horizon and the atmosphere was nighty and relaxing

"'Vire, Zorua, everyone, I'm back" The volt feline greeted and took a look at his friends

Electivire waved to him cheerfully while Zorua greeted him with his classic smile on his face "Welcome back! But why have you taken so long?"

"Got ambushed by a pack of weaklings that couldn't judge whether let me go or get crushed, and also I didn't find that much stuff in that area, that's why" he explained and looked around him "But where's Riolu?"

"There" Electivire said, pointing at the jackal "I don't know how he is or what's he doing, he refused to speak when he got back, just avoided any conversations" he said and dismissed his friend

When Shinx approached to Riolu's side, the fighter greeted his best friend without bothering turning around, totally absorbed in his business "I was almost worried about you, happy to see you're safe 'n sound, I'm almost done with this structure here"

"Got the flint for you, nice job with this... uh... thing" Shinx replied while taking a look at that roofing Riolu made between two close trees with sticks, branches and leaves, it looked rugged yet lightweight and effective

After grabbing his fella's flint and a stone from the ground Riolu sighed and sat by a unlit but ready campfire.

While he tried to make a spark with the two stones he sadly whispered to his friend, that in the meanwhile sat by him "Will we ever find them?"

"We will, and if they ain't here, we will search 'em in another place and another, and another until we find what belongs to us" Shinx whispered with decision "We have to do it, for me, for you and for Zorua"

"I hope so..." The fighter concluded and gave an expectant look at the stars, like if he wanted them to come down from the firmament and help them in their journey

After ten good minutes of trial at the bonfire, Riolu yelled angrily "Light up already!"

"Can I try?" Electivire sneaked up behind the fight-type and voiced his question with a suspicious smile on his face

"Yeah, no problem" Riolu replied with a both skeptical and mild face "By looking at me you should have figured out how to do it"

In the meanwhile Shinx was descripting to a totally uninterested Zorua how boring his trip was and how that Larvitar fled with his tail between his nubby legs.

When Electivire raised his arm up in the air...

From his fist, flames burst out covering his forearm in a red blazing fire; just touching with a finger the firepit was enough to light it up for good

"Awersome! It's perfect!" Riolu said with a mixture of surprise and happiness while marvelling at the burning fist

"What the..?" Shinx gasped instead, emitting a weak flash of light from his mane due to the spook

"Holy..!" Zorua reacted, expecting that something special was going to happen when he saw the large electrical pokemon raising his arm

"I don't exactly know how the fire starts and neither what it consumes… but whatever!" Electivire said laughing and looking at his arm with curiosity

"After our stay near the city we can directly go north with that!" Riolu burst out, full of happiness

"We should start resting now, it's evening and you all know what we're gonna do at dawn in this city" Zorua suggested as he fluffed his fur up and proceeded to rest "Right?"

"Fine" Riolu and Shinx said, abandoning themselves in the arms of Cresselia

"What are we going to do there? At dawn I mean... in that city" Electivire asked with a perplexed face, looking at Zorua, waiting for an answer

"Scavenge for stuff!" they all answered in sync

"Fine, I guess… but YOU wake me up at dawn!" Electivire continued as he yawned and laid down under the roofing made by Riolu

"I'll do it" The jackal concluded with a tired voice, matching his mood and his face

And so... they rested till dawn…

* * *

PS: And here it goes, another rework... Without the help of my sammich fella, hope that he's proud of my progress.


	6. Secret ingredients?

Even if mortally tired, Riolu still had some duties to fulfil, an eleven minutes nap with his friends was enough for him to regain enough energy for his tasks.

Mechanically, as he stood up on his feet, Riolu rubbed his eyes with his forepaws and grabbed the sack he had lying by him, dragging it as well as himself near the campfire.

He sat on a rock by the fire pit and looked around, he was so tired that he forgot to take off his backpack, as he noticed that the object of his research was literally behind him, he nonchalantly took it off and extracted a small pot out of it.

"Small outside… big inside… hehe~…" He quietly chuckled, thinking about the size of their backpacks while drawing from a belt pouch a small, extremely worn, switchblade.

The blade of the small pocket knife twinkled when it exited from its hilt. The prolonged exposure to powerful auras made that one-edged scrap of metal abnormally durable and sharp, in contrast with its broken appearance.

Fire, water, countless berries of known types, a recipe, a bit of imagination and a dash of love. That's all what Riolu had, and what he used to cook as his mother taught him long ago.

"Simplier times… Better times… Tough times…" Riolu sighed and whispered to himself, then turned around, giving a reassuring smile back at his sleeping doom-mates "Are you proud of me…"

"…Ganny?"

"And so they left… Their souls still bound to us…" He wandered with his mind while looking at the stars, not paying attention to the fact that instead of just dicing that poor sitrus berry, he divided it till nothing but a yellow dust was left.

He shrugged and added the mound to the mix, "Spice" he giggled. A few minutes later he finished adding all the ingredients to his stew.

"Should be fine" Riolu said to himself quietly while sheathing his switchblade, then he slowly started moving towards the sleep, that until he recalled "The salt!"

After adding a pawful of white colored crystals in the pot and grabbing back Shinx's backpack, Riolu placed the sack near his owner and abandoned himself near Electivire, entering almost instantly into the only place where he could be happy.

* * *

"His aura is so powerful... It pierces the night sky…" I said in apprehension, looking from above the group of sleeping pokemon, particularly at the Riolu.

"I can feel it too… We are doing our best, but they will all fall… Can't avoid feeling guilty here…" He spoke up his mind, concerned along with his voice.

"Stick to the plan, we can't allow your creative ideas here" I replied "Do I have to remind you that even my attempts either failed or backfired?"

"Aye" He replied and nodded "got it"

"But…"

"What is he doing? Is he dreaming? Can you see what's happening there?"

From their position, they could feel Riolu's emissions, powerful pulsations that they could feel and distinguish, working for Riolu's kin like a radar.

"Let me take a look... knowing his dreams might help us doing better our job" I prompted and floated above the jackal quietly, avoiding getting spotted by his aura field.

My fellow decided to go below our target, a dark expression flashing on his black and golden face while he dove below the soil.

"How cruel... His fate... This is by far the painfullest past I've ever seen... Ever" He told me via telepathy.

"Cruel indeed, look... Proud and yet in tears in front of that memory" I replied, emphatically feeling the burdens of the small pokemon we were spying.

Noticing that Riolu abruptly turned around and was about to say something, in a startle I threw my message to my interlocutor "He felt us! Don't forget the plan!" and faded away hastily.

"Will do, he-heh..."

* * *

"Go away!" The jackal yelled inside his mind.

Riolu woke up all in a sudden, sweating, breathing heavily and with a shocked expression printed on his black and blue face.

Just spotting Electivire's orange and fuzzy fur with his blurred eyesight was enough to kill any words the tiny fight-type had in his throat. He tried to silently jump away in order to avoid waking up his friends, but since he was distracted, dizzy and overall upset, he ended up tumbling down clumsily on his shoulder.

Zorua, heard that unexpected noise, woke up from his light slumber and spotted Riolu crumbled on the ground, quite embarrassed, with an angry expression on his face.

"Wh..." the dark-type fox rubbed his eyes with his paws "What are you doin'? Is it dawn already?"

"I... You... Ugh... Nevermind..." Riolu said in confusion, trying to buy himself some time to recover from the fall and sort out his thoughts.

"If that's not a hell of a bad nap..." Shinx spoke up as he started to stir, shaking his head and looking around with his tired eyes.

"With love, from me!" Zorua snickered and took advantage of Riolu's dizziness to empty his own canteen on his head, with hilarious results.

"AAGH, COLD! STOP IT!" After the quick shower the fighter yelled "I'm fine! Wet, hurt, cold and fine! Cut it off!"

"What are you two doing? There's no time for playing! Just hurry up and grab your stuff!" Shinx yawned and scolded his friends as he gradually turned around towards Electivire "And..! Uh… is he still sleeping?"

Zorua took initiative and jumped on the electric-type's chest "Time has cometh buddy! Wake up!" he loudly called, his genuine, classic smile defeating the tired expression left by the sleep.

"Is he ok?" Riolu asked while drying his head with a stained cloth patch, drew from one of the external pouches of his backpack.

"I guess that he is just an heavy sleeper, but I think I know a solution for that" Zorua said while looking at Electivire's tails waggling on the ground, wriggling like tiny little Ekanses.

At first Shinx and Riolu didn't get what he meant and gave him a puzzled look, but when their stares met their sleeping friend's tails they suddenly understood what Zorua was up to, so they both voiced a quiet "Do it!" in sync.

The small fox gave a nice bite to one of the tails without even thinking twice, causing Electivire to twitch and instantly wake up.

"AAGH!" 'Vire shouted in pain, blue sparks dancing between his two orange horns due to the pain and the fright.

That surely hurted a lot, infact the large electric-type raised Zorua, that had his tail still in his mouth, at the height of his face just with his second tail.

"Why!?" Electivire inquired, looking angrily as the dark-type, trying resisting to the urge of frying the dark-type with the power of a million thunderstorms immediately.

The tail biter and the bystanders reacted with a hearty laughter, making the angry pokemon sigh and let it all go.

"By the way… is… uh... What's this smell?" Electivire picked up after letting Zorua down, smelling a scent in the air.

"Why don't you all turn around and see?"

Riolu stood by the campfire, pouring the now-ready stew into a set of four wooden cups.

"Come on, diner is ready! Sit down and let's eat!" He smiled at his friends while holding two cups.

"Finally!" Shinx happily said while approaching "Skipped breakfast, skipped lunch, not gonna miss diner today!" and sat by Riolu.

Zorua, without a word (but with an expression worth one thousand), gave a quick glance at Electivire and snickered, then moved on along with Shinx.

"Waiting for someone?" Riolu waved to the now alone electric-type, pointing to the stump he was sitting beforehand "c'mere!"

* * *

"He's hiding it really well…" I said to myself "Not gonna last forever…"


	7. The great scavenge: part 1

Just a few minutes of walking were needed for them to reach one of the human city's entrances.

In the heart of the night, of course there was no human around, but still, Electivire marvelled at the constructions, the potted plants, the road and the street lights in amazement, this time however, he didn't spoke up about it.

Instead, he blurted out something else, a particular about his friends that he noticed just that night "Hey… Shinx… Why all of you wear necklaces?"

The other electric-type replied with a kind smile, almost proud, leaving Electivire almost completely speechless "These ain't simple necklaces, these are everstones, you didn't get suspicious about our strength didn't cha?"

"Ever… Stones? I overheard something about those… why do you three wear them? Do you know that they prevent you from evolving and becoming stronger?"

"We know… We vowed to not evolve ti-" Shinx continued, in time to get interrupted by Riolu talking about the main plan.

"We're close to the entrance" He declared, then, after shooting a confident gaze to his mates, he resumed "Y'all know what this means? Time to split up, I'll go search the lower half of this city with Zorua, th-"

"Got it, follow me 'Vire! We'll search around the upper half of this city" Shinx interrupted Riolu, his voice confident like and even more than his mate's.

"Alright, so… recapping: I and Zorua will search from that blue building to that tall one and you two everything else, understood?" Riolu whispered while pointing at the mentioned constructions.

Electivire, Shinx and Zorua nodded in agreement, officially starting the scavenge.

* * *

"Someone's coming… around the corner, now!" Shinx whispered to his fellow, hiding in the shadow of the large white cubical palace with Electivire in tow.

"Who would ever wander around the city at this time of the day… He's coming this way!" Electivire whispered back, looking expectantly at Shinx, waiting for tips or instructions.

"If he gets even closer… There's no place for hideo!" The small feline looked down, struggling to find a solution to the problem "…Come on… think something…" He whispered to himself.

"I have an idea!" Electivire blurted out that he *have* an idea, not saying which, under his breath.

"Ow! Let me down, let me down, let-me-down!" Shinx whispered his yells as Electivire picked him up "Don't you even think abou- WAAH!"

The guy, that in the meanwhile was quietly walking along the road, looked around at the steer near the JTV building, presumably saying "What was that?" due to the weird noises he heard.

He kept looking around but oddly enough, he didn't notice the flying Electivire with a Shinx holding him by his horns that first climbed on the wall of the TV building, then when high enough he jumped from the side of said building to the tip of a street lamp and, with a final leap, from it ended up on the other side of the road, safely in front of a tall gray house.

Shinx, between a breathe and the other, tried to say "That… That was…"

"I know, I know… I should've warned you of what I wanted to do" 'Vire apologized, poking his head from the side of the building, looking at the roads and in particular to the human of before that was still looking around himself.

"That was... Utterly awesome!"

"Yah…" He replied, already prepared to receive his, at least in his mind, well deserved scold "Wait, what..?"

"Didn't know you were so agile!" Shinx congratulated the other electric-type, his eyes lighted up in amazement and happiness.

"Oh, yes… I owe that to Zorua. He taught me how to do such things" Electivire replied, impressed beyond limits for the second impromptu praise he ever received, impressed not for the praise itself, but because of _who_ praised him.

Shinx smiled at his 'Vire and shooted a glance at the building they were standing by "Let's get started with this scavenge, gimmie a boost, there's a window here"

Electivire, still stroke by Shinx's unexpected reaction, nodded and helped him getting inside.

* * *

However, Riolu and Zorua had a different kind of encounter…

"What's going on there?" Zorua drawed his buddy's attention, looking at the area on the other side of the road, in front of a house.

"Mh..? Well, let's go find out then, no?" Riolu replied and followed his companion, that was already crossing the road.

They approached a blue house, near the southern exit of the city, finding some old acquaintances standing in front of the building.

"Well, well… we meet again, n't it?" Riolu stated, quite annoyed by the two old foes that stood before him and Zorua.

"Hah! Look who finally showed up!" The round and shadowy pokemon replied with his everlasting grin, typical of the ghost types.

"Something, feels different in them… Gen…" The ghost's pal tried to recall his buddy's attention.

"Leave the words to me…" The big shadow whispered to the Haunter and glared again at Riolu, much less at Zorua.

"So, where was I? Ah yes, we have a new offer for this day only! After the first beatin', you'll get another one! Absolutely free!" He provoked Riolu, exactly in his style, remained unchanged after months.

"Looks like you two evolved, but, dear Gengar, I bet that even if you had any gray matter as an Haunter, now you have even less!" Riolu challenged, folding his arms and shooting a sharp Shinx-style glare at the ghost-type, looking impassive and showing how much he grew up since the first time he and Shinx met them.

"You little..!" Gengar yelled in anger and rushed towards Zorua "Let's see how d'you protect your friends this time!"

"What the..?" Zorua reacted to the assault, shocked and unprepared.

Riolu stood still, waiting for the hot-head to come close enough, then he pounded Gengar on the ground by using Shadow Claw, all of that executed cold-bloodedly.

"Argh… Old moves always work…" That sentence was the only one that could be understood into Gengar's angry ranting, making Riolu stare at him in despise as result.

"Do you remember mine?!" He continued and took advantage of the fight-type's attention to use Hypnosis on him, successfully making him sleep "Hah! You fell for it again!"

Zorua stood still, paralyzed without reason by what was happening just at two steps from him, he didn't even know why he didn't do anything, he was just staring.

But when he decided to actually help his buddy, he got blocked by Gengar.

"Haunter, do it!" The large ghost\poison-type said with an evil accent (far better than Larvitar's)

"Aye!" Haunter replied and started approaching to the sleeping pokemon, but he looked reluctant and uneasy, totally the opposite than his buddy.

"Let go! Let-me-go! You twats! Don't you dare touching Riolu!" Zorua angrily barked while trying to shove away Gengar, but since he wasn't enough strong, he bitten his hand instead.

"Grr… Stand still!" He replied and bashed on the ground the dark-type fox with Shadow Punch.

In the meanwhile, Haunter wandered into the memories of Riolu by using his move Dream Eater, finding among them what he and Gengar should've known long ago, since the first time they met Riolu's crew.

Riolu itself felt someone inside his head, rummaging between his thoughts and memories, so he abruptly woke up, interrupting the connection between him and Haunter and kicking him away as soon as he woke up.

"Out of my head! You freak!" The aura pokemon barked angrily as he stood back up, starting to smolder.

"Gengy, stop wasting your time, we've got to go right now" The second ghost\poison-type suggested to his leader, looking really serious.

"What? Are you kidding me?" Gengar looked back at him, the same facial expression of a baby which is said that playtime is over.

"Do you even remember the last time I made a joke or did a prank? If I say that we have to go, it means that WE HAVE TO GO!" Haunter shouted, pointing at the forest with one of his two ghostly hands.

"I'm not done with you two! We'll meet again!" The specter said, leaving the other duo alone in that square against his will.

"Psst!"

"…"

"Condolences, Riolu, condolences from the bottom of my heart for your loss…" Haunter whispered to him before dismissing.

"Why have you stopped me…" "I'll tell you later…" The to ghost-type pokemons chatted while flying elsewhere in the night sky, not without shooting a glance at Riolu or Zorua.

Riolu didn't say anything, but he seemed relieved and overall happy that the ex-bullies are now gone, he helped Zorua getting up and nonchalantly about what happened, he pointed at a red roofed building, designating their objective.

* * *

"The night is still young and they weren't meant to wake up before dawn… but _at_ dawn… Curses to me that I gave myself this job…" I spoke up for myself, trying to exorcize the desolation by talking at the void.

"The only thing I can do is just to watch and assure that nothing supernatural bend their fates… *sigh*"


	8. The great scavenge: part 2

A/N: Last Edited\Revised by UnusualThoughts, PaisleyFox and Cyber Silver on 22/07/16

* * *

"Rubbish… junk… and more trash…" Riolu whispered to himself while searching in the garbage, then he exited the bin and addressed his mate "Found something different than litter?"

The two were searching behind an hospital-like building, various crates and white plastic boxes filled to the brim the multiple trash bins, emanating an unbearable stench.

"Dirty bandages, countless needles, glass shards, spoiled food and a lot of stuff that stinks… We should check inside, humans always have extra stuff and…" Zorua replied, disgusted by the smell, getting out from a bin as well.

"And..?"

"…And let's stop searching in the garbage, just stay'n this long around here makes me feel like a Grimer!"

"Yeah… agreed" Riolu rolled his eyes, looking up at the building "Let's check inside like you just said, shall we?"

Zorua nodded and they both started looking around the construction for a possible entrance, only to find it a few minutes later by Riolu.

As the aura pokemon led his buddy beneath an almost closed window on the second floor of the building, Zorua interrupted his friend's train of thoughts with his usual cheery voice and his Classic Smile™ "Five berries that you can throw me up there, what do you say?"

Riolu happily nodded, finally distracted for good from his thoughts and memories, starting to focus more on the current moment.

Zorua was even happier for his reaction, exchanging his mate's genuine smile with one of his while getting ready for the launch.

After grabbing the fox from the fur tuft around his neck, Riolu got in his usual fighting stance "Are you ready there?" and as he received a nod from Zorua, he started the countdown "Four… three… two… one…"

Riolu threw his friend upwards, managing to have him cling steadily on the lower edge of their target.

"Yes! It worked! We actually did it!" Zorua gleefully shouted, trying to cheer his mate up even more while climbing into the building.

"Nice! But lower your voice and find me a way in!" Riolu replied, still smiling.

"Alright." The dark-type confirmed and turned around, taking a look at the room he had just entered. "Louise was right, he looks so good while smiling…"

He was still balancing on the edge of that hospital room's window, so he silently jumped inside, but as soon as he touched ground with his paws, the pokémon laying on the bed moved, making Zorua wince and hide behind a cabinet.

After five minutes spent fearing being spotted, Zorua peeked his head from the side of that cabinet, finding out that the Kadabra laying on the bed was still sleeping.

"Ok… everything's safe everything's fine…" he encouraged himself, starting to scan the room for possible stuff to "borrow without permission".

But before he could exit the room and look elsewhere because he didn't find anything, he heard some weird sounds coming from outside, as if someone was kicking the hospital's wall, so he checked what was going on by looking down from the window, finding out that Riolu was trying to climb up a smooth wall without any help, of course failing and making a lot of noise.

"What are you doing? Stop that! I'll go try open the front door." Zorua scolded the fighting-type, making him stop and stick to the plan.

"Alright... but don't make me wait until sunrise!" Riolu replied between a pant and the other, starting to move towards the main entrance.

Zorua then exited the room and started wandering around the corridor, until he found a staircase.

Even if that wasn't the first time he entered in a building, staying alone in that alleyway at night creeped him out.

The bleeping of machinery and the pokémon sleeping were the only sounds that could be heard inside the whole building, but that didn't help the dark-type keeping his head.

Zorua gone down the set of stairs stealthily but this time, due to how frightening that hospital was getting in his mind, he quickly shifted it to a silent run down the stairs, almost making him stumble a few times.

As expected, the entrance was deserted and silent; this view comforted the small fox enough to make him calm down, but to his surprise, he noticed that the main door was blocked by a metal screen.

Everything was closed, the only thing that stood out from the white and antiseptic design of the entire building was a gray ladder with a red toolbox by it.

Since there wasn't nothing interesting in the hall and he didn't want to go back into the corridors, knowing that Riolu must be around and waiting for him, maybe in front of the metal screen, Zorua started looking around for some kind of exit or small duct he could use so that Riolu could get in.

Meanwhile, the jackal was following each movement of his friend thanks to his aura, tracking his trip inside the building, yet unable to help.

After his research, understood that the only way of getting back out from the building was using again the window, but before going back to the corridors, he wanted to check the hole in the ceiling right above the ladder.

He ascended the folding ladder to its top, then jumped inside the small opening on the ceiling, leading him to a gray, metallic duct with chilly air flowing in it; even if it was quite tight, a small pokemon like Zorua could easily crawl inside it easily.

From outside Riolu could hear some sounds coming from the other side of a grill on the hospital's wall, so he stacked a few of the boxes and barrels he had around him and looked through the grill, spotting something coming towards him "'Rua? Is that… you?"

"Yes, yes… It's me!" The dark-type answered from the other side of the grill. "I didn't know that the main door had metal screens during the night… I didn't find any exits from this place other than this tunnel… And stop calling me like that!"

"Well, I can try to break this lid-like gray stuff between us!" Riolu confidently suggested, giving Zorua a reassuring smile while grabbing the grill.

"Sounds good to me! But there's a spinning metallic thing behind the lid you're pulling, even if you stop it, there isn't enough space for me or you to pass by…"

As Zorua was finishing saying that, Riolu easily tore the grill away from the wall and saw the spinning fan between he and his friend "Darn… You're right… and this tunnel isn't even big enough to let me deal with that…"

"Don't worry, It's big enough for what we have to do in this building"

"Fine…" Riolu sighed, then continued, sitting down on the crate he was standing on. "I'll stay here, waiting for you to come with some stuff."

"Got it." Zorua replied and started backtracking, sliding backwards till he returned to the reception, then he returned to the second floor of the building, and started scanning each room and cabinet for goodies to take.

Meanwhile, Riolu was still sitting down on the stack of crates in front of the vent, looking up at the stars, smiling happily and enjoying the fresh air of the night that filled his lungs instead of worrying about Shinx and Electivire, even thinking about their current condition. He was waiting for Zorua to come and bring something from the vent, that until he encountered a familiar shadow again…

After roughly twenty minutes, Zorua was back from his search and made Riolu stand up and turn around towards the wall due to the noise he produced by crawling.

The dark-type pushed to the other side two small white boxes with a red cross on it, looking similar if not the same to the ones they found earlier between the garbage, but the ones brought by Zorua appeared factory new "Do you think that these two are just enough for us?"

"Yeah, more than enough. Now it's time to get you out of this place, go back to the window." Riolu stored the two boxes inside his backpack and proudly smiled at his friend, voicing his suggestion with confidence.

"Alright then, I'm going." Zorua replied, backtracking while speaking.

When they both reached the window, with Zorua looking down from it and Riolu waiting below, the fox asked his mate, concealing his fear well, "Well, here we are, I can't just drop down, it's too high! Got any ideas?"

"Drop down anyway! I'm here, ready to catch you!" Riolu replied, waiting with his paws rested on his hips.

"What? It's just too high! I can't do that!"

"Trust me! I'm a Riolu after all!" The fighting-type reassured his friend, a suspicious smirk printed on his face.

"O-ok… I-I… I'll do it…" Zorua stuttered while clambering out of the window.

As soon as Zorua dropped down from the it, Riolu ran to the wall, jumped and wall-jumped in time to grab Zorua within his arms and safely landed in a plant pot.

"How do you feel? Everything's fine, everything's safe, eh?" The fighter giggled with his princess in his arms.

"Y-yes, I'm fine… n-now drop me down… and… how'd you know what I said while I was there?" Zorua asked his hero, while clearly holding a scream in his mouth

"Aura stuff, mate, aura stuff… Heh~!".

* * *

 _Meanwhile..._

"'Vire! There's nothing useful here, ready to grab me?" Shinx said, quite disappointed by the outcome of his researches, clambering out the window of the building and dropping himself into his friend's grasp.

Electivire nodded and raised his arms, successfully grabbing the other electric-type "I think we should check the building near that exit, that one with the yellow thing around it".

Shinx jumped down from his fellow's arms and replied "Yeah… There might be something more useful".

"The sun is rising and we haven't found anything… let's search together this time." Electivire said, wanting to help Shinx out and learn what to look for by directly watching the feline in action.

"Mhm… yes, I bet you can climb up to that yellow… the yellow… uhm…" Shinx thought for a second, looking down at the road.

"Thing!"

"Haha~ Yeah! That yellow thing! Buddy, you're killing me..!"

"You think too much, let's go!" Electivire, full of glee, exhorted his friend and in one leap reached the 'yellow thing'.

"Don't you think I'm not going to join the fun!" Shinx replied and followed his friend up on the building.

Electivire opened a window and with his fellow, entered inside the building.

"Where are we?" Vire asked while looking around, seeing for the first time in his life an human building from inside, of course excluding the generator.

"Awesome! We are in the store-freaking-room! Already!" Shinx rejoiced, contemplating the immensity of the room, filled with multiple rows of shelves and boxes lying around.

"Let's get started then! I'll look over there and in that pile of boxes" 'Vire exhorted his friend once more, starting their search into the warehouse.

* * *

 _Elsewhere..._

"I feel bad for them…" I whispered.

"Father, I know that it's hard not to do anything, just focus on your duty like we all do…"


	9. The great scavenge: part 3

**A/N: Last Edited\Revised by UnusualThoughts, PaisleyFox and Cyber Silver on 29/07/16**

* * *

"His future… It's so unstable… I can't correct it on my own, even if this is my duty. Is it a problem for you?"

"Not for me, but if you can't do nothing about it this means that events have to go this way. But remember, we have to protect him no matter what, his fate is far too important for this universe"

"What are you two talking about? Everything in the distortion world is crumbling down, I'm struggling to keep the shards well far from each others" Giratina rose from the darkness of the void and scolded the talking duo.

"We have no time for your plans, you can't warp other pokémon and people's fate like if they don't even matter! Can't you just understand this point?" The pink legendary pokémon ignored the scold he had just received and retaliated with one of his.

"It's necessary! You two never understood anything about the multiverse, you just refused to listen to me! Your foolishness will ruin both of you!" The dark dragon yelled angrily, burning in long repressed spite.

"Enough! Go away, damn it! You're not welcome here!" The blue dragon rolled his eyes and spoke up, more to avoid creating another fight than supporting his 'elder brother'.

"I will, but mark my words, you'll regret it every time you two didn't listen to me, every time I wanted to help you both, each single time I wanted to be the brother…" Giratina dove again in the darkness, creating a portal to the distortion world and disappearing into it.

"He is surely up to something, we'd better be carefull…"

* * *

"Look at this! Unfortunately it's not of your size but… with a few strings we can make it fit your arm!" Shinx cheerfully beckoned Electivire while fumbling with two watches, the latter of the duo was still searching in a pile of boxes, throwing around styrofoam just for fun.

...

"Look out! He's coming for us!" An unidentified being said to another shapeless and gray entity.

...

"I can't even focus on this shard… How can all of this…" I said, trying to concentrate on another portal, sweat falling off my forehead.

...

"Darn… You just ain't doing it right…" Another undefined creature spoke up to himself.

...

"I need a break from all of this…" I said, looking down into the void, thinking about everything I saw in the last two hours.

"Fools… It's because of me and our father that all the different universes don't collide…"

"Giratina… Have you got some spare time for me?" I begged the dragon\ghost-type to come along.

"Sure... what's up? Do you need anything?" Giratina approached, trying to dispel his anger by thinking about something else and more important, letting out steam just by cursing in his mind.

"Could you relieve me? I need a break from all this insanity…" I asked, sounding really impaired.

"S-sure, but why? And why me" He replied with hesitation, looking up at my face worriedly, successfully distracted by his previous thoughts.

"Just look…" I said, opening countless portals to likewise universes.

"He… He's going to die soon and can't do nothing about it… He instead… lost all his memories and transformed in that atrocity of a being… Those four little pokémon will search for truth in that mountain, discovering something that we're hiding… holding on for later…"

"Uff…" Giratina emphatically understood my condition, having to deal with numberless universes, limitless struggles.

"Those two are sailing in search for truth… going to cheat death many times, she…" I continued talking in distress, not shedding a tear because of the formal appearance I had to keep.

"I've got this, go take a nice break, I'll deal with everything"

"How can the 78.3% of fates be so sad, shrouded in darkness and… I just… I can't… I feel so sorry for them… So desolate, depressed…"

"Look at my face!" Giratina shouted, drawing my full attention. "Think about what the result is of all this suffering!"

He continued, pointing with the end of his serpentine body to one of the portals "He's going to get his sanity back! She will start her life again at the best moment, becoming what she always wanted to be from the beginning! There's no gain without pain!"

"I… You're right… You're damn right!" I gained confidence again and closed every portal. "We have to watch the bigger picture, the cosmic plan we both planned and are slowly constructing!"

"That's how I… we want you! Take your break, leave this one to me, I promise I'll not 'do what is good for the future' while you're resting" Giratina suggested with willingness, taking my usual spot between the now shut portals.

"Thank you… I'll personally go fix your issue with the distortion world and the shards, only after that I'll take some time for myself and calm my nerves."

Giratina nodded and we parted ways, me floating towards the distortion world while the dragon\ghost-type standing between the closed portals, looking at them with curiosity, trying to understand how to activate the ones he specifically wanted to open.

"Before you go, open the important portal again, I don't have the power to do that…" Giratina admitted, rolling his eyes and speaking up before I had gone away.

"Ah, yes… Almost forgot… here you go" I replied and did as he asked, opening the portal n7 and n1, then turned around crossing the gap between the distortion world and my home.

After Giratina closed the distortion world portal, he whispered to himself "So… Where are they... Not this one… there we go! I've surely missed something…"

* * *

"Look at all this stuff here… these blue-roofed buildings always offered the most to us" Zorua thought out loud, looking at Shinx while browsing through all the goods they all had in front of them.

"Ah yes, and we've got these glowing things from that building over there, the one with the yellow 'thing' around it, one for each of us" He replied to Zorua's statement, showing the loot from the building he 'visited' with Electivire.

"Aah yes… it's all about things, especially yellow things!" The larger electric-type said under his breath, giggling a bit.

"It's a… a… watch, I think… I've heard of these. It's called poketch or something like that but I'm not sure… and I don't even know how do they work" Riolu explained, shrugging and looking around the building's dump.

"You're all so knowledgeable…" Electivire said, just for entering the conversation.

"And you're surprisingly agile!" Shinx replied, still impressed for his comrade's performance at the street lamp.

"Hah~ come on! It was nothing!" He replied, looking quite embarrassed from Shinx's continuous praises.

"Look at all this stuff… This extra pouch is now mine!" Riolu started with disdain, then he picked up the new pocket and hooked it at his belt, smiling.

"You don't seem all that happy for the new gears… What are these? Bracelets?" Shinx complained, looking at some variously colored bands, belts, braces and anklets lying on the ground.

"Naah, it's just that humans waste a lot of still useable stuff… never knowing when to stop… woah, that stuff is so heavy… yeah… heavy…" Riolu lifted a few of those items, then he took off his backpack, emptying it in front of everyone.

"What the hell..? Dude… why?" Electivire reacted, shocked by the fact that most of Riolu's backpack's storage was occupied by stones.

"What's wrong?" Riolu laughed it up, filling his backpack with two green and rectangular items that looked like weights. "I'll take these too…" He continued and wore two bracelets, a purple and a brick colored one.

"He likes that kind of challenges, not going to stop him, hah~!" Zorua commented and laughed a bit to ease the situation even more"...Ha… ha... Wh- Why is this even here? This makes no sense at all!"

"Huh? What's that… I think I can learn this move the same way I did with Aura Sphere…" Riolu thought out loud, so both Zorua and Shinx could participate and help him decide about what to do.

"You shouldn't take again that kind of gamble… You know the risks… Too high, you remember what was about to happen when you did this kind of thing last time, no?" Zorua warned his friend, reminding him of the stroke of luck Riolu had and made him learn his now-favourite move.

"But… This is a really useful move… And I have my ideas clear for what I intend to learn." Riolu continued, storing the pink disk into his backpack and looking up thoughtfully at the stars.

"Well… Who wants some clothes? There are a few accessories here and there but I'm fine without them." Shinx interrupted the fight-type's line of thoughts, changing the focus of attention to something more pleasing.

"Uhm… I'm not all that interested… I'll just collect these leather strips… they might come in handy sometime." Riolu shrugged again and started picking up the brown strips from the ground, descending from his mind world of thoughts, possibilities and memories.

"..." Zorua watched silently at a green circular hair brooch on the ground, as if it made him think about something dear to him, making the dark-type fox zone out temporarily.

"Well… I'm fine like I am now, I don't need any… what did you call them?" Electivire spoke his mind, looking down from his towering stature of 1.85 meters at the small pokemon and the clothes lying around them, on the ground.

"I said 'clothing' and 'accessories'. Anyway, I agree with you, lookin' already fine as we are with our own stuff." Shinx finished the conversation, looking at the way back to the forest.

Riolu gave a nod at everyone when he finished picking up strips from the ground, storing them in his new pouch. "So, do you all think we're done here?"

"I guess so…" Zorua answered, looking up from the brooch and yawned "Let's get back and sleep…"

* * *

"Wait, they're done already? Drat… I've missed a lot of their scavenge then…"


	10. The taste of pain

**A/N: Last Edited\Revised by UnusualThoughts, PaisleyFox and Cyber Silver on 08/08/16**

* * *

"I'm done with resting, I think I'm ready to resume my normal duties" I replied to his question.

"Very well, if you need anything, just give me a call" The ghost\dragon type said, sounding as encouraging as he could, then vanished in the portal he previously opened.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" I whispered to myself, watching over the portal, finally rested and fully operative.

* * *

Meanwhile, Riolu's group was heading back to their shelter to sort out what they have found during the entire scavenge, but… something felt different in the air… something felt off.

"Could you please slow down a bit? I need a moment to catch up…" Electivire asked and bent forward, taking long and deep breathes.

Riolu wasn't listening, he was once more lost in his thoughts, strangely enough even Shinx looked distracted, only Zorua stopped and waited for the other electric-type.

"Hey, where are you going? Wait for him!" The dark-typed fox beckoned the other two pokemon, waving in their direction with his little paw.

"Yes…" Shinx replied with a saddened voice, stopping without turning around, looking over to Riolu, which stopped too, but after a small while.

"What's wrong with you two?" Electivire complained, stretching a bit and getting ready to go once more.

"You look… distracted…" Zorua continued what Electivire was going to say, sounding quite annoyed by his friend's apparent nonchalance in their regards.

"Listen, let's speak of this when we're back at the shelter… ok?" Riolu said under his breath, shooting a quick glance back at his two other friends standing still on the pathway.

Shinx nodded and started moving on again with his best friend, but not without staring at him worriedly.

"Don't worry, wire… I'm here with you, I know the way back…" Zorua reassured his bent friend, looking up at him wearing his classic smile.

"They are hiding something and I _will_ make them tell everything" Electivire stood upright, saying his plans with determination.

"No! Just… don't!" Zorua jumped, looking back from the path to his friend, only to see him dashing away, chasing Riolu and Shinx "Run… Away… I have a bad feeling about this…" He then spoke to himself, pursuing the chaser for his good.

Such was his fear of what could happen, that the dark-type managed to catch up and block the electric-type, but just glancing into Electivire's blue eyes, gazing down at Zorua, made him give up, actually reading how determined his friend was from that piercing gaze "Alright then… I warned you… do as you like, I'll try my best if something happens…"

* * *

And so they were there, sat around the campfire: Zorua looking really upset, Shinx sorting his and his friend's stuff out and Riolu cooking something over at the campfire while Electivire stared down at the other electric-type and the fight-type, looking about to start something.

After a few moments of silent observation, Electivire decided to start the conversation by himself instead of waiting for someone else to do it for him "It seems like nobody wants to talk here?"

"N-o" Shinx simply replied, rolling his eyes and giggling for what exited from his mouth.

"Not now, I'm busy" Riolu, instead, gave a more creative answer, giving a curt glance at the Thunderbolt pokemon, then focusing again on the pot.

"N-no…" Zorua whispered "No" he then continued after a moment, trying to hold off inside of him the sensation of fear that was slowly consuming him.

"So, what are you two hiding?" Electivire asked without hesitations, going straight to the point.

"Who, us?" Shinx replied, then turned around, showing an obviously fake confused expression "We're not hiding anything".

Riolu started blending the soup's ingredients, listening to the conversation while trying to-

"You can't hide whatever you're hiding from me forever, you two both know that, spit it out now once and for all" Electivire looked down at the Shinx, looking totally different from the usual curious, talkative and lighthearted Electivire the group knew and loved, showing off that within himself, there's a serious and fatherly big brother.

"Hide what? We're not hiding anything!" Shinx stood up, sparkling with electricity as he replied, his warrior's spirit making him angry.

Zorua's mood went from simply upset to scared, making him take a few steps back, anxiously trying to think up a solution to the problem he was going to face.

"The only thing you two always try to hide so much, that every time it comes out, everyone just changes subject and try to act like nothing happened!" Electivire pursued his target, noticing that the more he kept insisting, the more Shinx looked about to give up.

Riolu in the meanwhile, as the conversation continued, stirred faster and faster, hoping that they would just stop and let it all go.

"I dare you, no, _I double dare you_ to make me angry!" Shinx yelled angrily, unsure about what to do, clearly unwilling to harm his friend.

The dark-type was so scared that whimpers fled from his throat without him even noticing it "Stop it! Please stop!" he said, hoping for any kind of reaction from the two electric-types.

"Spit it out or I'll pack my things and go!" Electivire set his ultimatum, looking directly in Shinx's eyes, challenging psychologically the small feline.

Riolu stopped stirring the soup-ish thing he was cooking and extracted from the pot a piece of steel he warped in a ladle-shape fashion, though, the sound of that tired metal kitchenware bending in his paw marked the victory of Electivire over Shinx, infact the two pokemon stopped their argument as they heard the sound of metal bending from Riolu's direction.

The fighter abandoned the ladle on the grass with a resigned expression and approached to Electivire, folding his arms and looking up at him "What do you want to know..?" he said, forlorn in face.

Before speaking, Electivire took a big breathe, then… "Your… past…"

"Alright then…" Riolu said, sitting down on a small stool he previously crafted with twigs and branches.

"We… We all lived at the far south of this island… where Mount Coronet meets the sea… I lived with my parents in a huge hollow tree, we were surrounded by the purest forest ever seen, never tainted by human feet, Shinx and Zorua lived in two separated natural cavities in the mountain with their parents… As I told you the first night we passed together, life was simple, we had water from the glaciers and…"

"Stop circling around the real problem! Oh, for Arceus' sake spit it out! Talking about it once and forever will make you all feel better!" Electivire interrupted.

* * *

I rolled my eyes when Electivire said that, giggling.

* * *

Riolu slowly nodded and resumed his monologue, his face getting teary "One night… that… that night… I woke up in really early because I heard some strange noises coming from outside the tree I call home… I noticed that my parents weren't in their cots and I… I…"

"You..?" Electivire sat down in front of the fight-type, trying to make him feel comfortable, that he is his friend.

"I remember that since I couldn't find neither Ganny nor Lou… I looked outside through a crack we had on our front door… All I saw was a thick white mist that didn't let me see correctly the surroundings of my home… I heard a voice yelling 'ultra' something… I've never understood correctly human speech… after that yell a bright yellow flash shone for a brief moment, not bright enough to let me see through the mist though… during the small moment where there was that light, I heard a manly scream, abruptly stopped when the light ceased… then… even more noises that now I can surely associate with fights…"

Riolu took a big breath, wiping away some tears after he seemed done with his tale, looking down in despair.

In the meanwhile, Shinx took a seat by the fire, staring at it in troubled reminiscence, listening to Riolu's words and brushing some dust off from his version of the same story.

Electivire tried to make Riolu feel better by patting his shoulder lightly, earning the jackal to continue his story.

"I got out to check what was happening and as soon as I exited home… I saw two glowing blue eyes… Then something blew me back home, right above my dad's chest… I felt inside of it but before I recovered and could be again able to move… the chest shutted close… locking me inside…" Riolu momentarily stopped when Zorua nuzzled the fight-type's chest, managing to make him smile a bit "Was saying… no matter what I did… I tried to open the chest, hit it from inside… begged for help… all my efforts… useless…"

"The day after… I've found his tree's door open, so I got inside and asked if he wanted to play… the response I got was a weak groan coming from a chest right on the bark opposite to the door… after I picked its lock… I've found Riolu inside of it, unconscious…" Zorua took a step back from the jackal and whispered to Electivire, making him shiver a bit, digesting what he was hearing.

"Gh… The pain's not over, 'Vire… Just think about his story, but change the hollow tree with a cave …I and Zorua with Riolu and you'll have the same result…" Shinx gave up and started talking, shedding some tears between a word and the other.

Electivire didn't expect such a backstory, he stood trembling in disbelief, trying to think about it and at the same time speak, with poor results "I'm… I…"

Riolu struggled to resumed, trying to complete his story without being interrupted by his emotions "We spent the next two months looking for them! Two, three, whatever, a year! We struggled to keep our mood up, to survive with just what they taught us! We… They cannot have abandoned us!" The fight-type yelled out of despair and covered his eyes with his paws.

Zorua stepped in again "We passed two fu-… freaking years living like this in our houses… how they taught us to… But we couldn't keep on like that... We had to go away and search… We took two months for preparing ourselves… And five weeks later… We met you…"

Nobody past that point had the courage or even the will to keep on talking. After dinner, they all slept deeply, a slumber without dreams nor anything.


	11. Weird-o

"Shh... They are waking up... I knew we had to come earlier"

Moments later, Shinx woke up and, a bit dizzy, yawned

He mechanically whispered to himself "Canteen..." and started searching for it in his backpack

In the meanwhile, as always, Zorua was doing his morning recognitions, but this time, with a partner

Shinx didn't realize that Electivire wasn't there and kept on doing his morning activities

"And now we're back, see? That wasn't that heavy isn't it?" The small fox said to his mate

"Yeah! That was cool, especially when we sneaked past those two Weavile, eh?" Electivire replied, happy for what he learnt

Zorua nodded to him and greeted Shinx "Hey! 'Morning Shinx! This guy continues to amaze me!"

Shinx rubbed his eyes and took a sip from his canteen "Hey there *sip* nice to see that you...'re both back, found anything interesting around here this time?"

"We've found an apple tree, bushes of pink berries and the way for Mount Coronet *takes a breath and turns around* is he still sleeping?" Electivire listed and asked pointing at Riolu

"After a night like that, of course, he has to digest again his past, he's pretty emotional about that and I can tell that he's not dreaming... *sigh* He usually does" Shinx said with masked pity for his friend

"How can you tell?" Zorua asked

"My theory is that when he glows while sleeping, he's dreaming, I'm extra-sure about that" The volt feline explained

"Like he's doin' now? Look at him" Electivire pointed at the faintly glowing jackal

"Exactly... Start preparing your gears, I'll do it for him since he's sleeping... Wait... Is he sweatin'?" Shinx recommended and got closer to Riolu

"Surely he's having a nasty nightmare... Should we leave him alone for a bit?" Electivire suggested but as soon as he said that, Riolu, still with his eye closed, stood up

"S...Stop... Stop the screams!" He repeated, while covering his ears with his paws

"Are... Are you alright?" Shinx asked to his sleepwalking friend

Riolu didn't answer, instead, he tightly hugged him and whispered again "Please! Stop those screams!"

But as soon as he noticed that he was hugging something corporeal, and not a creation of his mind, he opened his eyes and took a step back

He looked really scared and started looking frenetically into his backpack and, with his friends' surprise, he emptied his canteen on his head

"...Much better..." Riolu said and shaked his head

"R-Ready up your stuff Lo... Riolu, we're leaving" Shinx desperately tried to switch topic

"Y-Y... Yes..." The wet, cold, hurt and fine pokemon replied and started picking up his things

Zorua gestured to 'Vire to do it as well and Shinx started salvaging what he could from the shelter

After half an hour they have totally erased any trace of their passage from that spot and they started moving on towards Mount Coronet

PS: The next one will be longer, I promise, but gap fillers and intermissions between chapters are needed.


	12. Hidden powers

**A/N - Hey guys, hope you enjoy this chapter, but while you're at it, you should go check out the others, considering they are being edited and revised, in order to create more character depth, organize the writing a bit more, add detail, etc.**

 **Edited chapters will have a message at the top, explaining the date of revision, so you can tell them apart from the rest.**

 **If you read the other chapters before this one is posted, please go and re-read them, I hope they live up to expectation!**

* * *

"They're getting closer. Remember, stick to the plan, don't screw it up like you did in the other shard," I said.

"I have my own plans too, don't forget. You care too much about the future and how things have to happen, but I'll improve them, in a way or in another. Either way, you can't stop me," Giratina replied with a smug smirk on his face.

I rolled my eyes and ended the conversation by saying, "And you call your brothers fools…"

* * *

"Do we have to cross that city again?" Electivire asked, wringing his hands with nervousness.

"Yes and no." Shinx started, "We'll go around it, after all, almost all the cities in the region are surrounded by forest."

"Got it," the electric-type replied with a relieved sigh and smile.

They had just started traversing the forest floor when Electivire first asked his question. Riolu and his weird dream never really left the forefront of his mind, and every so often, he would shoot a glance in his general direction, as if he expected the jackal to start yelling again.

After half an hour of walking, Riolu started complaining. "I'm tired of walking," he grumbled, looking off to the side of the path in annoyance.

"Wait… Are you say'n that you're already tired?" Electivire asked, surprised with the sudden lack of energy from the jackal.

"What? Of course not! I said I'm tired of walking. I want to run! Come on! I bet that you can't keep up with me!" he challenged, starting to accelerate his pace while looking back at his companions.

"Nope! This time, I'll beat you!" Zorua accepted the provocation and followed the fighting-type, picking up his pace to match and exceed the Riolu's.

"Just wait and see how fast I can run!" Shinx added, his tone raised with glee, as he proceeded to do likewise.

Electivire, now left alone, watched his companions speed out of sight. "Kids… Heh," he sighed, rolling his eyes with a small laughter, and started jogging, as to not get left behind.

* * *

After a good hour of forest running, they approached the entrance of a cave. It loomed above them, a good ten meters in height, threatening to swallow the group once they passed its threshold. The inside looked dark, and the stalactites and stalagmites gave the entire area a creepy feel.

"Is that the entrance of Mount Coronet?" Electivire asked in between tired pants, grateful for the break from the run.

"No… No, that's more like a passage…" Shinx took a deep breath before continuing, "It leads to a city I've already been in."

"Fine, let's go on in, shall we?" Riolu exhorted his crew, not showing even minimal signs of fatigue. His composed demeanor betrayed the fact that he wasn't tired from their sprint whatsoever.

"Yeah, yeah… Just a minute," Zorua replied, trying to buy himself a few moments to calm his breathing.

Riolu noticed that everyone was tired from the run and nodded with a victorious smirk. A full minute passed afterwards, in silence, if one did not count the incessant raspy breathing from the trio of exhausted Pokémon.

"Too many trainers… Should we fight or take that other way?" The dark-type fox asked.

"Fight! Of course!" Shinx replied, his walk shifting into a proud march.

"Let's go the other way, I heard that there are water pools inside this passage, we can fill our cant-" Riolu paused, taking a small sniff at the air before cringing at the pungent stench that met him. "What's that smell?"

"Yeah… Something smells like… Rotten eggs?" Electivire, too, noticed the scent, and in an attempt to locate its source, turned his head a few different directions. However, the subject of his stares ended with Shinx. The larger electric type gazed at the feline questioningly.

"L-Let's go to the pools, we'll fight later," Shinx said, slightly taken aback at Electivire's stare. His confusion only grew when Electivire approached him

Electivire got closer to Shinx and scoped him. Shinx, now uncomfortable with the silent attention, took an apprehensive step back. "Yes? What's up?"

As Shinx took that step back, though, Electivire noticed the feline was standing on a mound of yellow dust. With a surprised gasp, the larger electric type swooped down and grasped the feline firmly, dragging it away.

"What are you doing! Put me down!" Shinx surprisedly called out, flustered with lack of understanding concerning Electivire's actions.

"You were standing on a toxic dust! Watch where you walk!" Electivire scolded him, "That's Sulfur dust!"

"What? And what can just a pawful of dust do to me?" Shinx replied nonchalantly, glaring at Electivire.

"Back in the generator I overheard a lot of conversations from different humans talking about Sulfur in the facility."

"And so?" Shinx interrupted, his annoyed glare not receding in the slightest.

"So, I heard that if you're in a cave or a rocky area, and in their case, a factory, and something smells like rotten eggs, you gotta get away! Sulfur dust is toxic as far as I know!" Electivire explained, gesturing towards the mound of dust.

"If you're done with the lesson, I'd like to start moving," Riolu interrupted the argument, annoyed by the waste of time. He didn't bother turning around to look at them.

With that, they started moving again, stepping around randomly placed stones and traversing the uneven plane. A little bit further down, Riolu stopped Electivire mid-step.

"What's up?" Electivire asked, taking a step back and giving a perplexed look at the jackal.

No response came from Riolu. Instead, a camouflaged voice, hidden among the floor directly in front of Electivire spoke up.

"Thanks buddy," it said, as it moved out of the way. Electivire was about to ask what it was when Riolu started talking.

"You seem to care about toxic dusts, but you've still got to watch out for the GeodudeEEES!"

He was interrupted as he tripped over yet another Geodude, and was vaulted forward and fell on the ground, flat on his face.

"Don't walk on me," the little rock-typed pokemon grumbled as it moved away from the group.

Electivire, a smug look on his face, turned towards the downed form of Riolu.

"You were saying?"

"Shut up…"

They both laughed.

After four minutes of, "Stop kicking me around!" and two falls later, everyone had made it to a natural staircase, leading towards a large, underground body of water. The lake shimmered with purity, the surface calm and near-rippleless.

"There!" Riolu exclaimed, pointing out the sight, already excited for what was to come.

Shinx and Zorua ran over towards the water, Riolu hanging behind. Electivire was about to follow his friends when the fighting type grabbed his hand and held him firm.

"Huh? Yeah?" 'Vire asked, somewhat annoyed at the yank he had received.

"I, uh… I actually got something for you," Riolu opened his backpack and drew from it a magnet as large as his head "I wanted to give this to you a while back, but I thought now'd be a good time."

Electivire, having just received his first present ever, stood shocked, his face contorted in a look of happiness, amazement, and thankfulness "R-Really? F-For… Me?"

Riolu nodded, separating the magnet from the macho braces stored in the backpack along with it. They had gotten stuck to the polarized metal, and it took a firm tug to relieve them of one another.

"I… I-" Electivire felt like he would explode in an emotion he couldn't quite understand. Helpless, he just stared, flustered, at Riolu.

"And now, you're officially in a loss for words," the jackal said as-a-matter-of-factly. Before the electric type could resume, he followed with, "Thanks are needless, come on, let's get going, Shinx 'n Zorua are waiting for us!"

"Hey… We're… officially good?" Electivire asked with an uneasy smile as he started walking towards the lake.

"Didn't I say that after the Beedrill Swarm? Of course!" Riolu replied, a smile so big flashing across his face that Electivire marvelled at that alone. The jackal joined him in his walk, trekking slowly towards the water, laughing.

"Did you know I found that magnet in the generator?" Riolu picked up, "I spotted it in the rubble after we defeated all those Beedrill the first time we met. It took me a while to figure out what it did, so it'll probably benefit you more than it would me."

"What are you waiting for?" Shinx yelled from the center of the lake before Electivire could respond, "The water's temperature is flawless!"

"We're coming, we're coming!" Riolu replied loudly with glee and, in a move Electivire least expected, ran into a lone stalagmite on the ground and bounced off of it. Instead of hitting the ground, he collided with another, larger stalagmite and did the same, slowly ascending from the ground.

A few seconds passed with his blue and black shape darting back and forth between the walls and other rock formations, making progress up towards the cave roof.

* * *

"This… Riolu… He just can't stop scaring us with his bravery... Want to give him a good fright?" Giratina suggested.

"Heh… Now, THAT'S a good idea! Will you all ever learn that being serious doesn't mean that I despise entertainment?" I replied to one of the funniest ideas I'd heard since the creation of Vanillish, "Hmm… This'll do… Aaaaand... Now!"

* * *

Riolu, finally finishing his wall jumping, clung to a stalactite on ceiling of the cave, ready to jump into the lake far below when the ground and cave roof began to shake.

Zorua and Shinx, scared by the tremor, quickly swam back towards the shore and scuttled a good two meters away from the lake while Electivire, who had since gotten in the water and was floating on the surface, either didn't notice or didn't bother to care about the quake.

A few seconds of silence passed, the trio of Shinx, Zorua, and Riolu, from his perch, looking around for clues about the source of the shaking, until a second tremor, more powerful than the last one, made Riolu lose his grip on the rock formation.

He flailed in the air, trying to right himself, when a large, serpentine shape emerged from the water directly underneath him. It caught the tiny jackal in its mouth, and, in less than a second, had clamped its jaws shut around the fighting type.

"A Gyarados! Electivire! Away from the water!" Zorua yelled at the electric type, approaching the body of water once more.

"No! No no no NO no!" Shinx screamed helplessly, sprinting ahead of Zorua.

Electivire, the disturbance interrupting his daydreaming, slowly flailed towards his friends from the water. He couldn't swim quite well, even though he could float, so he ended up splashing the general vicinity more than making progress towards the group.

The Gyarados rose again from the water, roaring in anger. The cause seemed to be Riolu, who was propping the beast's jaws open with his own body.

"Log- Riolu! Hang in there!" Shinx shouted, starting to charge electricity while Zorua aimed and shot a shadow ball at the serpent.

"Jes-!" Riolu screamed hurriedly before the water-flying type pokemon dove again.

"Don't worry! I got it!" Electivire paused in his flailing, sparks dancing among his wet fur. "Ah-ha! Eat this!" he continued, yelling, as he let out the entirety of his electrical power into the water below.

* * *

"He's killing him! Do something! This isn't funny!" Giratina shook me as he spoke.

"It's not funny because the funny part is yet to come!" I replied, laughing maniacally.

* * *

In the meanwhile, Riolu was battling for survival into Gyarados' mouth underwater, struggling to hold his breath and keep his posture with the water blasting against him in torrents. This went on until he and his hunter got both shocked by an incredibly powerful electrical charge that caused the Gyarados to emerge from water again. Riolu, with the shock lost his footing for a moment, and had to struggle to keep the serpent's jaws open.

"I've had… Enough… Of this!" Riolu yelled as he, in a desperate attempt of escape, stabbed the roof of the dragon's mouth with a shadow claw.

The Gyarados, with a cry of pain, blasted Riolu away from his mouth with a dragon rage, propelling the tiny fighting type into the rocky side of the lake. Both Shinx and Zorua took advantage from this moment of weakness and shot their thunderbolt and shadow balls right at the Gyarados' scaly face.

The Gyarados, at the assault, retreated into the water with a roar. However, Riolu, recovering from his skid against the shore, stood, looking over the water with an oddly indifferent expression. Suddenly, he started glowing that bright blue the group had seen all that time ago. He moved towards the lake's edge, and, pursuing the dragon, dove in headfirst.

"Wh- What are you doing! Don't!" Electivire yelled, frightened. In the moments following his discharge, he had struggled towards shore, and was now sitting there, panting, as Riolu's form disappeared beneath the water.

Flustered, he scrambled over to the lake's edge, near where Riolu had disappeared, and watched.

He spotted the blue glow, deep within the water. In an act of instinct, he tried charging up enough electrical power to attack once more, but in his weakened and exhausted state, all he could manage was a few sparks. He was forced to wait and watch as one of the only friends he'd ever made was killed.

The blue glow, meanwhile, got closer and brighter, so much that Electivire had to squint his eyes to keep track of it. Eventually, he had to move from his post on the water's edge, but by then, the light was blinding.

A moment later, Riolu, in all his glory, rose from the water, much to the collective relief of everyone watching. However, he wasn't alone.

The jackal was holding the Gyarados by its barbels, dragging the dragon onto solid ground. Now playing the role of the hunter, Riolu, seemingly effortlessly, lifted the Gyarados and deposited it on the shore.

Shinx and Zorua had never seen their friend glowing with such intensity, and stood, stunned behind a rocky formation. Electivire was in full view of the spectacle before his eyes.

"Riolu! What are you doing!?" Electivire asked, utterly bewildered.

"You!" Riolu pointed at Electivire, ignoring his question, "Get here and help me!"

As Riolu broke his gaze from the exhausted Gyarados, too tired to roar or make any attempts to get away, and directed it towards Electivire, the electric type saw a blue fire, blazing into the jackal's red eyes. Without saying anything, he hurried by his friend and held his paws.

Then, the impossible happened. With a growl, Riolu, using the Gyarados' barbels as a handhold, swung the entirety of the serpent's body like a whip, first colliding with the stairs, then on a wall, on the ground, and again on the stairs as if the dragon were as light as a sack of berries.

Electivire was nothing more than a brace, Riolu providing all the strength. Even with all the extra power, Riolu needed leverage, a larger Pokémon's body was the perfect tool.

After Riolu seemed to be finished, Electivire fell on his knees, staring at nothing in particular. He had felt the jackal's power through contact, and it left him amazed and speechless. Riolu, not noticing, approached at the poor behemoth's face as he charged a single fist with a blue flame.

However, right before the fighter could land the finishing blow, he got interrupted by a single word, uttered by Shinx.

"Logan!" he yelled, breathless. Riolu immediately stopped, his fist one inch away from the dragon's face, his face unchanged.

Shinx let out another, labored breath, "Logan! Stop!" he continued as he left the safety of cover and approached his friend, ignoring the brightness and its toll on his eyes.

As soon as Shinx got near Riolu, the blue light that consumed the jackal disappeared entirely, his paws falling limp to his sides.

"R-Riolu…" Shinx continued, encouraged by the effects his words had on his friend, "it's enough." To accentuate his point, he walked slowly towards the fighting type's slumped form and let a paw rest on the jackal's shoulder. In a movement that surprised all, however, Riolu fell forwards, all of his strength, even enough to hold himself up, completely gone.

The noise of the fighter tumbling down on the ground was enough to encourage both Electivire and Zorua to advance and assist.

"It's…It's fine… It's… e-enough" Riolu gibbered towards Shinx, looking emptily at the roof of the cave. When finished, his eyes closed as he blacked out.

"It is…" Shinx whispered back on deaf ears, and dragged his friend towards the advancing forms of Zorua and Electivire.

* * *

"Did you see how that tiny pokemon slammed a level 55 Gyarados around like nothing? HAH!" I was laughing so hard I didn't notice how Giratina reacted to the sight. He seemed both pleased and excited about something.

"This… I… I have to do something in the distortion world, later," he coldly said and vanished before I could reply.

"Hah… hah… where are you going? Curses, maybe he didn't like it…"


	13. A bird and a hard pokemon

"His aura… Heh… Time to do something about it…" Giratina spoke to himself with a low voice while adjusting the position of three multiverse shards

"...Agreed…" a mysterious voice echoed in the dark ruler's world

"Who dares spying my thoughts? Show up" Giratina asked and proceeded wandering around his domain, searching for his unexpected interlocutor among the various chunks of floating ground scattered around the purple gloomy landscape

"Ooh, I've been listening to your thoughts since the moment I was born!" The voice replied from an unspecified place, chuckling quietly

After that sentence finished to reverberate into the purple dimension, the specter felt that someone entered his domain

"There you are!" he said and rushed to the spot where his sensation came from

"Unfortunately, that's not me" The voice replied with a giggle, becoming slowly more defined but still not recognizable

Giratina didn't copy and headed towards the intruder, catching him as he landed on one of the dirt islands

"Halt!" the dark dragon autoritarily said to the invader while trying to look the more frightful he could

"Told you it wasn't me! Teh heh!" The voice laughed, shifting from an imperceptible whisper to a clear voice

Giratina took a quick glance back, expecting that the mysterious interlocutor was behind him, all he found was nothing but the normal distortion world landscape so he focused more on the intruder in front of him

"What led you here? Who art you? What do you seek?" Giratina asked, circling around the intruder to have a better look at him

"Teh citadel made, hope brought me heer, thou should be Giratina, n't that right?" The brown figure replied with his voice muffled by his concealing attire

The dragon\ghost type was close enough to scope him better: the intruder was as tall and thin as an ordinary human, his appearance was entirely covered by a brown hooded cloak. As far as he could tell, the mysterious stranger wasn't scared at all by Giratina's aspect, nor by his way of speaking and the voice he was using, so the dragon abandoned the prospect of driving away the intruder by scaring him and said, while creating a chunk of ground with his psychical powers to land on "Yes, I am Giratina, the owner and ruler of this dimension, still, who art you?"

"My name is Nagol, Nagol of the Citadel" The intruder presented himself while bowing, his voice still muffled by something in front of his mouth, likely a bandana

"Nagol eh? And what brought you here… into my domain of eternal darkness?" Giratina got closer to the rogue and lowered his face at the level of his

"Thou have way mor important things to think about aight now!" Nagol snickered with his weird accent, the outline of what seemed to be his eyes glowed blue

"What do y-…" Giratina's sentence stopped when in the entire domain resonated a sound attributable to crystal being broken

Giratina hastily turned around and discovered that two multiverse shards were about to collide, the rogue took advantage of that distraction and dashed away towards the edge of the platform they were both standing on, and, with a leap jumped towards a multiverse shard, his paw stretched out with something glowing golden in its grasp

"Son of a…" The ruler grinned whilst sprinting towards the two shards, desperately trying to avoid the collision

"Cursing will not help, leave him go, that's our _mutual friend_ 's will" The voice, seeming feminine, said before slowly fading

"Stop talking nonsense and tell me who or what are you!" Giratina, lost his patience, replied angrily while fixing the position of the two shards, making sure that they wouldn't move again

"Soon… Soon…"

* * *

"Has somebody even the faintest idea of WHAT-JUST-HAPPENED?" Zorua yelled, trying to dispel the fear accumulated during the goings-on that way

"I don't know! But I'm extra sure that if you keep yellin' he's gonna wake up, so hush!" Shinx reacted quietly, looking angrily at Zorua for his behaviour

"Dammit Shinx, I'll try again to relax, after all the stuff that happened all the lake's pokemon will leave us well alone" Zorua turned around and headed towards the water, shaking his head, looking pretty worn out by both fatigue and the fright of before

"Sorry but Zorua has a point, I'll go with him" Electivire said and started moving "you should come with us buddy!" he turned around and called Shinx, giving a comfortable smile to at least try cheering his mate up

"I can't leave Riolu alone, do as you want, I'll stay with him" Shinx replied and sat next to the fighter, looking at his wet body on the ground with a worried gaze

Electivire snorted and came back to his friend "You know what? This time we'll do as I want" he said and without thinking twice, he grabbed in his arms Shinx, all their stuff and in a more delicate way, Riolu

"Uff... What's your plan, big boy?" Shinx mockingly said and eyed him, annoyed by the fact that just that day he got grabbed twice like if he was just an object

"It's simple, you'll relax with us while Riolu rests by the water, precisely, by that rock there" The big electric typed replied, getting Shinx down and heading towards the rocky formation with Riolu in his arms, looking totally exhausted by the effort of smashing a Gyarados three times around the room

"Alright, fine *sigh* let's stick to your plan then" Shinx said and dove in the water right after Electivire carefully laid Riolu next to the aforementioned rock along with his and Shinx's backpacks

* * *

"Giratina, over here, it happened!" I called my son from the distortion world

"What's happening? Is it important? I'm busy" His voice came back from the portal, sounding quite annoyed

"If it wasn't important I wouldn't have bothered ya!" I replied, exhorting him to come

"Ok, let me finish doing this…" Giratina said and a moment later he joined me "What's the matter?"

"He finally reached the shard we wanted him to go!" I happily stated, pointing at one of the portals I was overseeing

"That's one less thing to think about, finally he made it… wait… is him he?" Giratina recognized the silhouette from the portal and looked at it suspiciously

"He truly is" I answered while giving him a proud and happy smirk

"And is she ..?" My son continued, remembering that we spoke about her a week ago

"It's not her moment yet, but keep an eye out for her, we do not want unforeseen consequences" I suggested

"Got it, are we done? Somebody messed up with the shards, you should know that…" Giratina asked and moved towards the edge of the portal

"Yes you can go now, there's nothing more I wish to tell you"

* * *

"So, was it a good idea?" Zorua said while floating on the water lightheartedly, trying to empty his mind and relax

"Yeah!" Electivire replied with glee while practicing swimming around his friends, with decent results

"Yeh... " Shinx replied too, not as happily as Electivire did, looking preoccupied in Riolu's direction

"Come on, he'll be fine, whenever he gets hurt you always said that he's tough and that he's gonna be ok" Zorua comforted his friend "Look, I know how to distract someone like you!" he swam near him and splashed some water on Shinx's worried-looking face

"Gah, bring it on!" Shinx replied, starting a childish splash war against Zorua

In the meanwhile, Electivire was slowly getting the hang on swimming, listening to their friends' laughters and, overall, relaxing until among their friends' voices he heard a third, familiar one "Riolu?"

"I feel… I feel like someone bashed my head with a bat…" From the rocky shore the fighter thought out loudly, shaking his head and trying to balance himself on his feet

Electivire, that in the meanwhile learnt how to decently swim, swam towards his friend

Riolu slowly faltered towards his backpack, lying a few feets from him, and got out of it something that looked like a towel and his canteen

"Logan!" Electivire greeted him, happy for his well-being "You're finally awake!"

Riolu turned around, his face both happy for seeing his handsome friend and bothered for how he got called "Hey… nice to see you" he said, with a thread of voice

As Electivire got near him, the fighter continued before he could say anything "Please, don't call me with my name... just call me Riolu"

"But wh-"

"Listen… We do have names, we didn't tell you because…" Riolu looked off to the ground, scratching the back of his head "Nasty memories…"

"I-I understand if you don't want to speak about it…" Electivire trailed off, watching his mate's saddened form

"My name is Logan... " Riolu started and raised his gaze from the ground "His name's Jesse" he continued, pointing at Shinx, that in the meanwhile was having fun with Zorua "and his name is Anders, please… don't make me repeat it" he concluded

"Got it…" Electivire nodded, kneeled by him and patted his shoulder in an attempt to make his friend feel better

"Get ready to fight!" Riolu unexpectedly yelled and slowly got in his fighting stance "Something is coming!"

"What..?" The electric-type turned around where Riolu was looking "Ah... hell"

Right as Electivire stood up, a trainer, wearing an odd robe, threw two spheres on the ground from which, a Staraptor and a Graveler came out

* * *

 **Bold = Human speech**

" **Quick! Aerial Ace**!" The human ordered

In a blink of an eye, both Electivire and Riolu got struck multiple times by that Staraptor's wings and claws

While that attack didn't affect the electric-type pokemon hardly, just a quick glance at Riolu was enough to understand that the attack did hurt him a lot

"Two other strikes like that and I'm done for good!" Riolu said, grinning his teeths in pain and getting back to his stance

" **Rollout**!" the human ordered and pointed at Electivire

Before Electivire could copy, the trainer's Graveler was rushing towards them

"'Vire, try Cross Chop before he gets us!" Riolu suggested and as that rolling stone was about to collide, Electivire hitted Graveler back with both his hands, sending him flying backwards to where he started his rush

"I have an idea!" Riolu said and before his mate could turn around, instead of him he saw a hole on the ground

Trying to focus more on the battle than the hole, Electivire closed the gap between him and his opponents while charging his right fist with electricity, jumping in a similar fashion as Riolu did to get all up to the cave's ceiling in order to hit the flying-type

" **Graveler! Bulldoze!** " the human ordered once more

The Staraptor, clearly confused by the apparently pointless jumps, didn't expect a physical attack by Electivire and got hit by his thunder punch, Graveler's move didn't hit connect because while he done his move, Electivire was mid-air

The landing he had, however, wasn't one of his bests, he failed to right himself and tumbled on his chest, right next to the Graveler, but before he could slam Electivire's head on the ground with his rocky fist, Riolu burst out the ground between Graveler's feet, blasting him up in the air by using dig combined with focus fist

"Not done yet!" Riolu yelled, starting to glow blue and followed in the air the Graveler, grabbing him by the arm

Riolu used his raw strength and force palm to shoot from the air the stone-type pokemon at the trainer's Staraptor as soon as he recovered and took off again

Electivire witnessed that while he was getting up on his feet for the rough landing and marvelled at the jackal in action with his eyes wide opened in amazement "My god! You just crushed a Staraptor with a Graveler!" He rejoiced and ran towards Riolu, that landed correctly on his feet

"Yeah… I ran out of PPs" He replied with a soft chuckle and gave a chuffed glare at his friend

"Ran out of what?" He asked, clearly not knowing what PPs are, his face still lighted up in astonishment

"Nevermind, we won buddy! Do you feel your strength raising as I do? We should fight more often!"

Needless to say that Riolu enjoys a lot fighting, even Electivire liked that experience, infact they both laughed as they moved away

Riolu was still glowing, but not as he did while fighting the Gyarados or when he sleeps, this time he had just a bluish outline

In the meanwhile, the trainer recalled both his downed pokemons, making them glow red for a moment before being transported back into the spheres

Electivire turned around at the weird noise and looked at the scene curiously, what he didn't notice instead, was the look that Riolu was giving to the trainer, a look full of hatred and spite

"Do you know how those things work?" Electivire looked down at Riolu and voiced his question

In response, Riolu shrugged and said "That's one of the many things I don't know, let's get to our friends"

* * *

"That was amazing!" Zorua runned towards his victorious friends with his classic smile printed on his face

"You saw that?" Electivire asked, full of happiness for his first successful battle against a pokemon trainer

"Overburdened, with amazement" Shinx walked at a slower pace than his fellow but his facial expression was exactly the same, a smile full of surprise and proudness for his friend's achievement

Everyone seemed happy and fine, everyone but Riolu, he got hit by a super effective move and was about to pay its consequences; once he deactivated his aura, the blue glow around him faded, and besieged by the pain, he kneeled down, a small pain groan escaped his throat

"Are you alright?!" Zorua's face flipped from happy to preoccupied when he heard that cry

"Aagh..!" Riolu whimpered and held his right arm with his good paw, grinning his teeths in pain "I'm fine, I'm fine! It's just the aftermath of that Staraptor's strike… gah…"

"Lower that paw, let me see" Shinx tried to examine the fighter's arm

"'Tis just a scratch, It's nothing" He replied and reached out for his backpack

"Nope, not just a scratch, you've got quite a deep cut there and you're covered in bruises, that Aerial Ace surely left his mark" The volt feline ended his diagnosis "The bandages we have will do, don't worry guys, he'll be fine" he comforted Electivire, that looked worriedly at the wound

After hearing the doctor's orders, Riolu, seeing the preoccupied expression on Electivire's face explained "Just to let you know 'Vire, aura helps me endure pain better, turning it off makes me feel all what it blocked in a blink of an eye" and after a curt nod from both the electric-types, he wrapped his arm using a roll of bandages stored in his backpack and stood up on his feet

"I'm sick of this place, are we done here?"Zorua sighed and looked expectantly at Riolu, waiting for instructions

"No, not yet…" Riolu negated "Shinx and Electivire, go check out that portion of the cave past the lake" he continued, wore his backpack and tightened his belt

"Alright, but what about you two?" Shinx asked before doing as instructed, slightly tilting his head in Riolu's direction instead of turning around

"I guess that we'll check here while you're on the other side, no?" Zorua replied before Riolu could and earned a nod from him

After a moment of silence, the group parted ways

* * *

"... Naah, that's just gonna make him really, _really_ angry" I replied

"Mhm… I agree with ya, but eventually… He'll find out by himself" Giratina observed while giving me a thoughtful look

"Yeah… but by the time he'll find out, it'll be the perfect moment to remove that bond isn't it?" I reflected with him and exchanged that look with one of my own

"Wait a moment… yes, it will!"

* * *

PS: Aaaah, the puns, the PUNS! Heh!

After all this practice this is the result, and it's without my good fellow TSM's help!

Reviews are highly encouraged, don't forget that, my good fellows! They help me a lot improving my writing skills!

About the other chapters, they are all under heavy rework, don't worry about them, they'll be as nice as sugar and spice!


	14. Unforeseen Consequences

**Bold = Human Speech.**

"Is he the trainer from before?" Shinx asked while getting out of the water.

"The guy with the robe?" Electivire said while swimming, looking at the little feline shaking his wet mane, spraying his surroundings with drops of water.

"Yes, he" Shinx continued when he got most of the water off his fur.

"Hah, who else could he be with that dress? Yes it's him" Electivire giggled as he replied and got up the rocky shore.

"Humans, weird till the end" Shinx shrugged with a derisory smirk on his face.

Electivire didn't have the opportunity to ask his friends why do they hate humans so much, each time he remembers about it something comes up and drives his attention away from the point.

A wistful expression flashed on his face when some old memories arose from his subconscious, so old that he even forgot to mention them to the crew.

He tried to draw Shinx's attention by snapping his fingers in his direction, but that part of the cave felt somewhat different from the other one, something that Shinx felt but couldn't explain nor understand.

Ahead of the two electric-types, a rocky staircase led downwards to the lower portion of the grotto, however the entrance of that area was blocked by an oddly shaped stone.

"Why is it... perfectly round?" Electivire examined the rock that was blocking their path.

"I don't know. Just… help me move it" Shinx replied while starting to push the obstacle out of their way with his paws.

"Are you sure we can move it?" Electivire asked to the tiny feline, which was having a hard time moving the stone.

"Of course! Now get here and help me!" Shinx replied and gave him a curt, encouraging gaze.

They managed to push the rock until there was enough space for Electivire to pass through the gap.

"That wasn't that difficult, eh?" Shinx smiled at his friend as he finished shoving the rock away.

Electivire looked down "Not as hard as I imagined..." he shrugged and gave a questioning look at the tiny feline.

"Did you know that…" Shinx proceeded while chuckling quietly "It was all you?"

"What do you mean?" Electivire followed close behind.

"I mean that I wasn't pushing!" Shinx turned around and smiled at his friend "You've gotta believe in yourself and in what you can do! Sometimes, hehe!"

* * *

Elsewhere…

The aura appendages of the fighter glimmered faintly and he stopped moving. "Ok, this is not the Shinx I know…" Riolu whispered to himself.

"Mh? You felt him doing something odd?" Zorua turned around and spoke up.

"Hmm… you know that Shinx is not easily impressed… and that he rarely encourages us…" The fighting-type continued, looking up thoughtfully.

As he heard that, Zorua snickered "Everyone has a tender side. I bet that he's showing his just to 'Vire to keep up his reputation with us! Haha~"

"Maybe" Riolu simply shrugged and tried to keep up with his companion.

The jackal was exhausted by the two fights he weathered, one against the wild Gyarados and the one along Electivire against the trainer's pokémon.

He felt totally burnt out of his strength and struggled to match Zorua's pace.

Even if he tried his best to avoid hindering his mate's research, Zorua noticed that Riolu really needed some rest.

"Leave this one to me" the dark-type fox said "I know you hate not doing anything but even a Zubat can see that you're too tired, sit down and take your time" he concluded with a friendly pat on the fighter's shoulder.

Riolu sat down with a sigh in response. Zorua gave him a nod before setting off on his own.

"I'll try tuning with you and the others while you're doing your thing, ok?"

"Just rest, you know that I never understood what you meant with that"

* * *

Back there…

"Whose idea was this!?" Shinx yelled in annoyance, mentally cursing the stone laying before him.

"Indeed! It's totally out of place! It's gray and almost perfectly spherical!" Electivire reacted when they saw another rock looking exactly similar to the other one they just moved away "Everything else is brownish and irregular!"

They both let out an exasperated sigh, then Electivire picked up "I'll move it out of the way! What do you say?" he took initiative excitedly.

"I'd say that this is how I want you!" Shinx smiled at his big brother, then he looked forward towards the hindrance "Wait, there's a smaller rock blocking the bigger one, I'll make short work of it"

As he said that, he leaped towards the stone, while he was mid-air his tail glowed of a bright metallic-gray and smashed it on the rock, shattering it to pieces.

Electivire's face was both pleased and confused by that view, infact when Shinx was done he asked "But… you told me that your moves were Ice Fang, Fire Fang, Crunch and Lightning Fang, no?"

"It's Thunder Fang, not Lightning… and this… it felt so natural to me… like for discharge..." The volt feline replied, giving a puzzled look at his friend.

"We'll discuss about it later with Riolu and Zorua" Electivire tried to distract his companion from the subject and pointed at the hindrance in front of them "Let's move this guy here!"

"Yeah, good idea…" Shinx accepted the distraction and waited for his comrade to move the stone out of the way, looking at him proudly as he shoved effortlessly the rock away.

* * *

Again elsewhere…

After Zorua left, Riolu sat down by a rock, the dark-type started looking around their portion of the cave beginning with the area around the entrance of the floor.

"Junk..." The small fox said to himself as he picked a white disk from the ground "When will they learn that the entire world is not a huge trash bin?

…

Well, one man's rubbish is another man's riches, for value, is in the eye of the beholder…"

As he crossed the basement, he passed in front of his downed friend.

Riolu was doing fine, he was keeping himself busy by trying to core a chilan berry with his small switchblade, as Zorua passed by, he waved to him.

A few meters away, the only human in that basement stood still, staring curiously at Riolu…

Zorua was trying to get past him, but since he couldn't find a way, he decided to draw his attention.

" **Mh? What do you want** " The man-in-robe responded to the yank, eyeing Zorua with the same stare he was giving at his mate.

As a response, Zorua pointed with his paw past the man.

* * *

Back on the other side of the lake…

"What is that?" Electivire blanched when he spotted a brown plate on the ground.

"For the very first time in my life… I'm at a loss for words." Shinx replied while staring at the glowing slab, lying on the ground right in front of them.

"Whatever it is… It's giving me the creeps, let's leave it there…" The large electric-type suggested while taking a step backwards.

"I-I'll take it! What would a slab do to me… after all?" Shinx approached to the plate and carefully stored it in his backpack, with such care that it looked obvious that he didn't even want to touch it.

"Alright then… Are we done here?" Electivire asked while already moving towards the staircase, anxious to see both the fighting and dark types again.

Shinx nodded and proceeded with his mate.

* * *

Back on solid ground…

Snoozing by a rock, Riolu stood there, waiting for his mates to come back… But something woke him up unexpectedly.

He felt like someone was throwing stones at him, but not heavy rocks, something lighter and more round.

At first he didn't care, but when he received a second hit Riolu woke up.

"Hey! Why?" He said, quite annoyed for being woken up in such a rough way.

After rubbing his eyes with his forepaws, he noticed Electivire and Shinx swimming towards him and, after turning around, he spotted by his hip two familiar looking spheres.

Logan stood stockstill, glaring angrily at the two weapons he had by him, one red and white, the other blue with red stripes.

He stood up and quickly got in his fighting stance, like if all the fatigue suddenly disappeared.

"Who? Who is it?!" The fighting-type growled, his eyesight still slightly blurry due to the fact that he just woke up.

Zorua in the meanwhile was on the other side of the rocky formation towering at Logan's right, but he heard his friend's voice and hurried back to him.

Understood the peril, the trainer that tried to capture Logan threw the last ball left on his belt.

Heard the sound of the pokemon exiting from the pokeball, Logan turned around.

"It was you! Filthy, greedy, heartless!" He shouted in that direction, starting glowing more than usual.

" **Riolu, prepare yourself!** " The human rallied his last line of defence, an ordinary Riolu stood in front of him ready for orders, giving back a nod of understanding.

Logan stood still, waiting for his opponent to strike first. "Fight me! I dare you!" He shouted to his sibling.

" **Go! Force Palm!** " The trainer yelled his command and his trusty pokemon dashed forward as instructed.

Logan's aura rose vertically, making him glow even brighter than when he did against the Gyarados, covering himself in a fiery, burning aura coat.

His opponent didn't get discouraged by the light and charged straight at Logan's chest, his hit however got blocked by a blue barrier, generated by our Riolu's left paw.

"He used Protect again!" Shinx said while swimming as fast as he could towards his friend.

"He knows Protect?" Electivire reacted instead, getting ahead of Shinx by swimming faster than him.

"It's all a lie!" Logan barked as he retaliated the attack with a Force Palm of his, blasting the trainer's Riolu back against his owner's chest.

"Stop him! He's losing it! Do something!" Zorua appeared out of nowhere, scared beyond measure, dashing towards his fighting friend.

Logan's eyes started faintly glowing dark blue, raising Zorua's fright and making Shinx and Electivire accelerate.

" **Go for the Focus Blast! Quickly!** " The trainer, starting to worry for himself and his pokemon, decided to use special attacks.

"It's useless!" Logan yelled and dashed forward, ignoring the incoming orb.

The Focus Blast hitted the jackal square in the chest, but he didn't look like it affected him that much, the only result was him stopping his rush.

" **Now!** " The trainer yelled as he threw against his prey a black and yellow ball.

The ball flew in the air and hitted Logan square on the head.

"No!" Shinx yelled as he saw the human using his weapon.

"It's not happening!" Zorua looked away, knowing what was going to happen before it even happened.


	15. Untold past

"I can't believe you've done this!" I shouted in anger, opening a portal to the distortion world "Get your gray ass here!"

"What the heck! What's going on? Hold your damn tongue!" He replied, dashing towards the gap I opened.

"Even a god-pokemon can swear dammit! Logan 5 is taking control over Logan 1!" I yelled "What have you done?!"

"What? Is he? We've gotta do something quickly!" Giratina shoved me away, getting in front of the portal to shard 1 "And I did no-freaking-thing!"

"If you did nothing, why is this happening?"

"You and your five-seconds-memory, can't you remember what we did?"

* * *

But…

It bounced away…

Silence fell in the cave, not a soothing one, that stillness was screamed all over the place, blinding with it's brightness everyone's mind.

Between Jesse's incredulity, Logan's heavy breathing and 'Vire's groan for our Riolu's brightness, Aiden's initiative took place "Not again! No more!"

The small fox rushed to the source of the light, reckless about what could happen to him, and when he got enough near he started to hear what Logan was really saying.

"Why is all of this happening to us? Why they did this to us? Why am I always on the center of attention? I want to go home… Too much burden on us… I'm so alone…" Those were the whimpers that escaped from Logan's throat, totally different from the raging words echoing in the room.

Aiden managed to bite Logan's right arm as a last resort to drive his friend's attention away and… when his teeths managed to dive in the jackal's skin, Aiden felt the power of Logan's aura in action… He already tasted Logan's aura after so many weeks passed secretly training with his friend, if only he could feel the aura like any Riolu or Lucario does he would manage to recognize Logan's between many others. But… he felt not only his… he felt that two different auras resided into Logan's body.

After this discovery, Aiden twitched a step back and opened his eyes by mistake, catching all Logan's shining radiations with his tiny eyes "Aaah! Bright! Too bright!"

While Aiden screamed in pain, Jesse took advantage from the distraction and blindly rushed, headbutting Logan off his feet "Listen up! It's me! Jesse!" he yelled, standing on the jackal's small chest, his eyes' dark blue glowing slowly fading and leaving the natural crimson color of his iris.

During all of that, Electivire was dealing with the human by body-blocking his Riolu's reluctant attacks and knocking off the air the spheres, he didn't even have the time to shoot a quick glance behind him even if he burned with the desire of doing so "I'll hold him off! DO ALL YOU CAN!" He shouted back, his voice shifting from preoccupied to determined due to the situation he was going through.

When he understood that there was no way of capturing any of those pokemons, the trainer ran away with his scared Riolu, leaving the fearsome foursome alone in that basement.

* * *

"*sigh* Everything's turning good… almost everything" I said while looking with Giratina at the portal.

"His eyes..! Blind or not blind?! Blind or not blind?!" Giratina blurted out, looking really upset and staring at me expectantly like he never did.

"Uhh… What do you say? Should we make him evolve or not?" I replied, looking at his gray and golden face indecisively.

"What do you mean? Ah yes… Evolution should fix that for good…" Giratina looked down and realized what I meant, giving a dejected glare when he looked back at me.

"Aagh! I don't know! Maybe we should call a global time freeze and decide this one calmly" I replied exasperatedly, looking away and trying to focus.

"Maybe… Maybe we should make him evolve…" Giratina spoke up quietly, looking down to the void.

"What? Yo' crazy?" I turned around, gazing angrily at the ghost\dragon-type with my green eyes "He's not gonna evolve till it's time!" then I turned around again "That's it! Anders… Aiden… whatever, his eyesight is safe! And now make them go to sleep!"

"But it's just noon!"

"You won this round..."

* * *

Logan shoved Jesse off from him and, like if in a heartbeat he've lost everything that mattered to him, hugged Aiden's head "Ady… I'm so sorry..."

"Wha- What?" He replied, repeatedly squinting his eyes, trying to recognize who was hugging him.

Before he could say anything more, Logan passed out, hanging limply on Aiden's neck and banging his head on the rocky ground when he lost the grasp.

After made sure that the human won't come back, Electivire dashed towards his mate, barely holding in his emotions, kneeled down by him and let them all go.

Jesse wanted to reach out and tone down Electivire's reactions, infact he was teary and hugging tightly Logan's blacked out body, but he felt that it wasn't the right thing to do, so he shifted his attention on Anders, that in the meanwhile was still groaning and rubbing his eyes.

"You scared me so much…" Electivire whispered slowly, trying to hold hold his emotions, those words literally slipping away from his mouth.

"How's your eyes..?" Jesse asked, forgetting to cover his concern under his usual warrior spirit and talking with a staggering warm, comfortable voice.

"Shinx? Is that you?" Anders tried to focus the familiar face he had before him "Yes, it's you… It still burns, burns like if I stared at the sun for five freaking hours!" he replied between a squint and another, scoping better Shinx's face, still unable to correctly see. "Gah... but in about few minutes I'll be back in business..."

"What about you?" The electric-type feline asked to Electivire, his voice wavering accompanied by a facial expression totally uncanny for a character like him.

"What do you want me to tell? I have nothing to say…" He replied, not separating his gaze from Logan's battered and dirty face, caressing it in a fatherly manner.

"Uff… Let's get out of here…" Shinx suggested, taking the lead and giving a look back when he got up the first set of stairs, waiting for a response from his mates.

"Yes, I'm coming, I'm coming" Zorua said, looking around for Shinx's silhouette, his eyes half-closed and the step unsteady.

The large electric-type momentarily laid down Riolu and wore his backpack, then he picked up again the fight-type in his arms, the whole process without saying anything.

Logan limply laid in Electivire's arms, still faintly glimmering and breathing normally, sleeping with a relieved expression printed on his face.

They exited from that basement, after all what happened down there, nobody got surprised that the trainers they found beforehand were all gone.

About the Geodudes? Words weren't necessary, just the sight of Riolu lying in Electivire's grasp was enough to make them move away. No mound of sulfur blocked their way out, nothing, an unbearable silent atmosphere vexed upon everyone, even the Geodudes felt that and avoided making any questions, giving empathetic stares at the silent guests.

* * *

"Orenburg City, we meet again" Shinx declared, then shooted a glance behind at his group "At this time humans usually nap, let's cross the roads quickly" he continued, a confident look printed on his face, yet it was only an aesthetic change.

"You mean… no stealthy solutions nor anything else? Just crossing quickly the town?" Zorua asked quite confused, his eyes still burning but not as before, the sensation overall bearable and his sight almost back.

Shinx nodded and Electivire exhorted him "Let's do this quickly", then shooted a quick glance down between his arms, Riolu was quietly sleeping.

* * *

"Haven't they noticed it yet?"

"No, they will in… Uh... can't exactly tell when but… Ah yes! 23 minutes"

"Got it"

* * *

After 5 minutes spent running around the deserted city's roads and 15 traversing the small chip of wilderness on its north, the foursome managed to reach the spot where Shinx ended up his researches back then, when he and Riolu had to craft a shelter before scavenging Jubilife city along Zorua and Electivire.

"I remember this place" Shinx spoke up his mind, without turning around towards his mates, trying to drink once more that sweet, calm air around him like he did before "This area looks like a crossbreed between a forest and the surroundings of a cave…"

"Does that matter?" Zorua complained, eyeing the feline nonchalantly "Was that worth even sayin'?"

"What question is that? I just said what I thought" Shinx replied tartly and returned Zorua's stare with one, much saltier, of his.

The dark-type just rolled his eyes with an air of superiority and carried on walking without looking back.

"Will you ever think twice before even opening your mouth?"

"What would Riolu say if he could hear you two bickering like two weeks old pups?" Electivire interjected and broke off the argument, his voice sounding less annoyed than he really was, but his facial expression worth a million scolds.

Zorua nodded with a saddened sigh and continued speaking "This should be a fine place to settle down, I'll care about Riolu… You'll do the rest?"

Electivire nodded and proceeded to lay down the jackal near Shinx, but before he could finish, he gasped and dropped Riolu abruptly on the ground.

"What the heck! Be more gentle next time.. Oh dear 'Ceus what is that!" Zorua interrupted his scold when he noticed what made the electric-type startle "Shinx! Get here and look!"

"His arm! Look at his arm!" Electivire said, scared so much that he took some steps back.

"What's with the commotion? We've got no ti-..." The electric-typed feline was about to set off and search components like last time, so he had to backtrack a bit "-ime… What the hell?!"

Even if his expression was quite minimal on the outside, inside of him his concern about Logan rose exponentially when he and his friends noticed that the fur on his right arm wasn't blue like normal, but tinted of a shiny bright yellow, sparkling under the daylight.

At that point, nobody said anything, once more the silence's reign came with it's unbearable weight upon the trio of watchers, this until Zorua thought out loud something he shouldn't have said.

"Drat… I knew this was gonna happen…"

* * *

"Two out of three for Electivire and Riolu, eh?" I tried to lighten the situation a bit, only to earn an indifferent grunt from Giratina.

"Wasted breath Archie, wasted breath"

"*sigh* It's the 456th time you called me like that and the 457th time I told you not call me Archie…"

"We've got to do something… Shinx and Electivire are gonna skin him if we don't intervene!

* * *

Well... The good 'ol isn't avaiable, have this last resort of loyalty!


End file.
